San Paolo is a former convent in central Parma, Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. It is best known for housing the Camera di San Paolo (Chamber of St Paul), decorated by a masterpiece of fresco work (1519) by Correggio.
San Paolo is a former convent in central Parma, Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. It is best known for housing the Camera di San Paolo (Chamber of St Paul), decorated by a masterpiece of fresco work (1519) by Correggio.
Tradition holds that the monastery was erected on the spot where Godescalco, the son-in-law of the Lombard king Agilulf, converted to Christianity and took the name Paolo. Supposedly he endowed the convent after his young wife had died during childbirth between 599 and 602. [1]
However, documents speak of a Benedictine convent, one of nearly a handful in Parma, present around the year 1000, and it was adjacent to the former and contemporary church of San Ludovico, now also deconsecrated. [2]
The convent mainly admitted women from aristocratic or wealthy lineage. It was to this monastery that Margherita Farnese (1567–1643), daughter of the Duke of Parma and great-granddaughter of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was admitted after the failure and annulment (1583) of her marriage (1581) with Vincenzo II Gonzaga, the heir to the Duchy of Mantua.
By 1767, the monastery only held about eighty nuns or candidates, after the arrival of Napoleonic rule in 1810, the monastery was suppressed. The convent came into the management of the comune. [3]
In February to September 1519, Correggio was commissioned by the Abbess Giovanna Piacenza to decorate the domed ceiling of her private room, now called the Camera di San Paolo or Camera della Badessa. He painted between the ribs to simulate a pergola, pierced by ovals (small windows) with smiling puttoes and hunting representations. Below the oculi are lunettes with monochromic scenes painted to simulate marble. The fireplace is frescoed with a depiction of the goddess Diana.
Apart from its mastery of style and "delightful vivacity", [4] the Correggio frescoes have spurred a debate as to the underlying significance of the iconography, in part debating the significance of pagan and hunting scenes for a nunnery. [5] The convent was known for the laxity of its rules, and had been embroiled, along with the abbess in various local land disputes. [6] Critics including Roberto Longhi and Erwin Panofsky have dedicated monographs to the subject.
The private room of the abbess was frescoed (1514) by Alessandro Araldi with grotteschi. The monastery contains a chapel of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria frescoed with scenes of her life also by Araldi. The rooms are open to the public as a museum.
In 2002, a wing of the monastery was converted into the Pinacoteca Stuard. This eclectic collection was left to the Congregation of Charity by Giuseppe Stuard (Parma, 1790–1834), administrator of the Congregation of San Filippo Neri and wealthy collector.
Since 2016, the collection includes works formerly in the Palazzo del Comune, including the Christ and the Canaanite Woman by Agostino Carracci, a Landscape with knights by Ilario Spolverini, St John the evangelist painted by Giovanni Riccò, and paintings by Amedeo Bocchi.
The first hall of the second floor has a number of 18th century works by artists who trained in Parma such as Enrico Bandini, Giovan Battista Borghesi, Guido e Giulio Carmignani, Alberto Pasini, Claudio Alessandri, Luigi Marchesi, Enrico Sartori, Deogratias Lasagna, Carlo Rimondi, Daniele De Strobel, Giorgio Scherer, Enrico Barbieri, Cecrope Barilli; and Amedeo Bocchi (including his paintings of Exodus and Lotus Flower).
Over three hundred paintings from the 14th-century to the 18th century is displayed in various rooms. It includes works by Bernardo Daddi; Paolo di Giovanni Fei; Maestro della Misericordia; Bicci di Lorenzo; Niccolò di Tommaso; and schools of Pietro di Giovanni di Ambrogio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi, and Parmigianino. Later works were by Sebastiano Ricci, Bartolomeo Schedoni, Guercino, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, Bernardo Bellotto, Lodewijk Toeput called Pozzoserrato,Anthony Mor, Felice Boselli, and Giovanni Gaibazzi. The city has included archeologic items in the museum.
Parma is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second most populous city in Emilia-Romagna after Bologna, the region's capital. The city is home to the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world. Parma is divided into two parts by the stream of the same name. The district on the west side of the river is Oltretorrente. Parma's Etruscan name was adapted by Romans to describe the round shield called Parma.
Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.
Carlo Cignani was an Italian painter. His innovative style referred to as his 'new manner' introduced a reflective, intimate mood of painting and presaged the later pictures of Guido Reni and Guercino, as well as those of Simone Cantarini. This gentle manner marked a break with the more energetic style of earlier Bolognese classicism of the Bolognese School of painting.
Giovanni Battista Gaulli, also known as Baciccio or Baciccia, was an Italian artist working in the High Baroque and early Rococo periods. He is best known for his grand illusionistic vault frescos in the Church of the Gesù in Rome, Italy. His work was influenced by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Illusionistic ceiling painting, which includes the techniques of perspective di sotto in sù and quadratura, is the tradition in Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art in which trompe-l'œil, perspective tools such as foreshortening, and other spatial effects are used to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on an otherwise two-dimensional or mostly flat ceiling surface above the viewer. It is frequently used to create the illusion of an open sky, such as with the oculus in Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi, or the illusion of an architectural space such as the cupola, one of Andrea Pozzo's frescoes in Sant'Ignazio, Rome. Illusionistic ceiling painting belongs to the general class of illusionism in art, designed to create accurate representations of reality.
Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.
Amico Aspertini, also called Amerigo Aspertini, was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor whose complex, eccentric, and eclectic style anticipates Mannerism. He is considered one of the leading exponents of the Bolognese School of painting.
Parma Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Parma, Emilia-Romagna (Italy), dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Parma. It is an important Italian Romanesque cathedral: the dome, in particular, is decorated by a highly influential illusionistic fresco by Renaissance painter Antonio da Correggio.
The Palazzo Ducale di Mantova is a group of buildings in Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, built between the 14th and the 17th century mainly by the noble family of Gonzaga as their royal residence in the capital of their Duchy. The buildings are connected by corridors and galleries and are enriched by inner courts and wide gardens. The complex includes some 500 rooms and occupies an area of c. 34,000 m2, which make it the sixth largest palace in Europe after the palaces of the Vatican, the Louvre Palace, the Palace of Versailles, the Royal Palace of Caserta and the Castle of Fontainebleau. It has more than 500 rooms and contains seven gardens and eight courtyards. Although most famous for Mantegna's frescos in the Camera degli Sposi, they have many other very significant architectural and painted elements.
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Alessandro Araldi was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Parma.
San Giovanni Evangelista is a Mannerist-style, Roman Catholic church located on Piazzale San Giovanni, located just behind the apse of the Parma Cathedral, in the historic center of Parma, northern Italy. The buildings surrounding the piazza were also part of a former Benedictine convent. The church is notable for its Correggio frescoes.
San Vitale is a Baroque style, Roman Catholic church located in central Parma, region of Emilia Romagna, Italy. it stands just east of the Palazzo del Comune and Piazza Garibaldi.
The Camera di San Paolo or Camera della Badessa is a room in the former Monastery of San Paolo, in Parma, northern Italy. It is painted with frescoes by Correggio in the vault (697x645 cm) and over the fireplace.
Abate Francesco Antonio Chiozzi was an Italian painter and Franciscan cleric, active mainly in Casalmaggiore, Italy.
Amedeo Bocchi was an Italian painter, active mainly in Rome.
Daniele de Strobel was an Italian painter, mostly known for his fresco work in Parma and Piacenza.
The Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist is a 1518 oil-on-panel painting by the Italian painter Antonio da Correggio.
The Annunciation is a 157 by 315 cm fresco fragment by Correggio, dating to around 1524-1525 and now in the Galleria nazionale di Parma.
Deesis with Saint Paul and Saint Catherine is an oil on panel painting by Giulio Romano, executed c. 1520, now in the Galleria nazionale di Parma. Its title refers to deesis, a subject in Christian iconography, shown here with Paul of Tarsus and Catherine of Alexandria in the lower register and the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist in the upper.
44°48′17.19″N10°19′44.26″E / 44.8047750°N 10.3289611°E
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