In ancient Rome, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The college of the Vestals was regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome. These individuals cultivated the sacred fire that was not allowed to go out. Vestals were freed of the usual social obligations to marry and bear children and took a 30-year vow of chastity in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals that were forbidden to the colleges of male priests.
Tuccia, was an ancient Roman Vestal Virgin.
The Veiled Virgin is a Carrara marble statue carved in Rome by Italian sculptor Giovanni Strazza (1818–1875), depicting the bust of a veiled Virgin Mary. The exact date of the statue's completion is unknown, but it was probably in the early 1850s.
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.
Francesco Mochi was an Italian early-Baroque sculptor active mostly in Rome and Orvieto.
Antonio Corradini was an Italian Rococo sculptor from Venice. He is best known for his illusory veiled depictions of human body, where the contours of the face and bodies beneath the veil are discernible.
Raffaele Monti was an Italian sculptor, author and poet.
Mattia Preti was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Saint John.
The Cappella Sansevero is a chapel located on Via Francesco de Sanctis 19, just northwest of the church of San Domenico Maggiore, in the historic center of Naples, Italy. The chapel is more properly named the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà. It contains works of Rococo art by some of the leading Italian artists of the 18th century.
Donato Creti was an Italian painter of the Rococo period, active mostly in Bologna.
The Veiled Rebecca or The Veiled Rebekah is a marble sculpture created by the Italian neoclassical sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni.
The Palestrina Pietà is a marble sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, dating from c. 1555 and now in the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence. It was formerly attributed to Michelangelo, but now it is mostly considered to have been completed by someone else, such as Niccolò Menghini or Gian Lorenzo Bernini. According to the Galleria dell'Accademia, the sculpture's "attribution to the master is still somehow controversial".
Italian Baroque art is a term that is used here to refer to Italian painting and sculpture in the Baroque manner executed over a period that extended from the late sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries.
Fabrizio Chiari (c.1615–1695) was an Italian painter and engraver who spent his entire life in Rome.
Giuseppe Sanmartino or Giuseppe Sammartino was an Italian sculptor during the Rococo period.
Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is an early sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It depicts the saint at the moment of his martyrdom, being burnt alive on a gridiron. According to Bernini's biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, the sculpture was completed when Bernini was 15 years old, implying it was finished in the year 1614. Other historians have dated the sculpture between 1615 and 1618. A date of 1617 seems most likely. It is less than life-size in dimensions, measuring 108 by 66 cm.
The Veiled Christ is a 1753 marble sculpture by Giuseppe Sanmartino exhibited in the Cappella Sansevero, Naples, Italy.
The Veiled Nun is a marble bust depicting a female figure that was sculpted by an unidentified Italian workshop in c. 1863. Despite its name, the woman depicted is not a nun. The bust was popular with visitors to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from 1874 until the museum closed in 2014. The bust is now displayed in the National Gallery of Art.
Modesty or Chastity or Veiled Truth by Antonio Corradini is a sculpture completed in 1752 during the Rococo period. Corradini was commissioned by Raimondo di Sangro to sculpt a memorial for his mother in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples, where the marble sculpture remains today.
The Veiled Vestal is an 1847 sculpture by Rafaelle Monti. The work was commissioned by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire during an 1846 trip to Naples. It is a representation of a Vestal Virgin, the priestesses of the Ancient Roman goddess Vesta. The subject was popular at this time due to the then recent discovery of the House of the Vestals in Pompeii. The depiction of translucent fabrics was popular at the time and Monti was requested to use the technique in this sculpture. Monti completed the sculpture in April 1847 and it was afterwards displayed at Cavendish's West London Chiswick House.
