Angelo Solimena – Wikipedia

Angelo Solimena (Canale di Serino, 17 November 1629 – Nocera dei Pagani, February 1716) was an Italian painter.

It was the progenitor of a family of painters, who belonged to his son Francesco Solimena and his granddaughter Orazio. In particular the first, said The abbot Ciccio (October 4, 1657- 5 April 1747), he imposed himself as the most relevant figure (after Luca Giordano) in the development of the Baroque and Rococo in the Kingdom of Naples, becoming one of the most famous painters of his era also internationally (which testified From the various commissions received from sovereign dynasties, such as the Habsburgs of Austria and the Bourbons of Naples).

Angelo was born in Serino (AV) in the hamlet of Canale on November 17, 1629 ^[first] , from Orazio Solimène and Angela Perreca. As a young man he was a pupil of Francesco Guarini, an important Solofrano painter, from whom he learned the style of a very essential, lifeless and vivid painting. Like many artists, he also evolved over time approaching Mattia Preti, Massimo Stanzione and finally to Luca Giordano, learned collaborating with his son Francesco. He spent most of his life in Nocera dei Pagani (the name with which he was known in the past, between the 16th century and 1806, a civitas that included a large portion of the Nocerino agro, made up of 5 current municipalities: Nocera Inferiore, Nocera Superiore, Pagani, Sant’Egidio del Monte Albino and Corbara) where he married, on 2 October 1655 Marta Resigniano ^[2] from which he had three children.

In 1656 he took refuge in Canale di Serino to escape the plague epidemic from which Nocera is hit. Here was born his eldest son, Francesco (Channel of Serino, 4 October 1657 – Naples, April 5, 1747).

Subsequently he returns occasionally to Nocera, until he settles definitively in 1662 (where he is nullanate ^[3] ). In this city the other two of his children were born: Tommaso (Nocera dei Pagani 14 March 1659), and Antonia (Nocera dei Pagani, 17 January 1661).

Angelo Solimena was highly appreciated by religious orders, who commissioned him biblical scenes, and by local nobles. It was lasting his relationship with the Orsini family, of the Gravina of Puglia branch, for which he painted considerable canvases in the Apulian city and in Solofra, where the Orsini were feudal lords. Of particular expressive power, the canvas with pity located in the diocesan museum dedicated to S. Prisco in Nocera Inferiore, also the Solimena was designated prior of the central church of the body of Christ, in which several of his works are preserved, including a San Gennaro intercede for the cessation of the eruption of Vesuvius in cooperation with his son Francesco.

He died in Nocera dei Pagani on the night between 15 and 16 February 1716. He was buried in the Cathedral of Nocera on February 18, 1716.
Today his remains are kept in an ossuary in the chapel of the Rosary of the Cathedral of Nocera Inferiore.

One of his main works is the fresco of Paradise In the dome of the Congrega del Santo Rosario in the Cathedral of Nocera, who made, together with the son between 1675 and 1680. The famous is also the famous View of San Cirillo of Alessandria in the church of San Domenico in Solofra

Another imposing series of frescoes with Stories of San Benedetto and the Paradise They are found on the ceilings of the major nave and the dome of the church of San Giorgio in Salerno. Also for the Cathedral of the Campania city he made some frescoes for a side chapel to the main altar.

Another cycle of frescoes is located in the Cathedral of Sarno. While the chest of drawers of the Basilica of Materdini in Nocera Superiore is lost, in which the author painted one among others Madonna and Child Taking his wife Marta and son Francesco as models ^[4] .

It is believed that many of his canvases are forgotten in deposits or congregations of various Campania resorts or in the church of Sant’Antonio in the city of Arpino (in the province of Frosinone) which, in the era of the Kingdom of Naples, was for the same, an important center industrial and strategic.

• Holy Trinity , oil on canvas signed and dated (“as 1672”), church of the Trinity of the poor of Avellino;
• Paradise (1675-1680), fresco, cathedral of Nocera Inferiore;
• View of San Cirillo of Alessandria (1675-1680), church of San Domenico, Solofra;
• Estasi di Santa Rosa da Lima , dated between (1678 -1683), Collegiate of San Giovanni Battista in Angri;
• Moses makes the water emerge from the rocks , signed (1677), private collection in Avellino;
• Compassion , (1678), diocesan museum of Nocera Inferiore;
• Coronation of Sant’Anna (1681), church of Sant’Anna in Nocera Inferiore;
• Stories of the life of San Benedetto , cycle of frescoes, church of San Giorgio in Salerno;
• San Bernardino da Siena , oil on canvas, 200×138 cm, museum of the work of the convent of the SS.ma Trinità di Baronissi.

• A.A.V.V. (1990), Angelo and Francesco Solimena: two cultures in comparison , FMR, Milan 1990, pp. 135.
• A.A.V.V. (2002), Angelo and Francesco Solimena in the Nocerino-Sarnese countryside between continuity and alternatives , De Luca, Salerno 2002, PP. 123 + 32.
• Pavone Mario Alberto (1980), Angelo Solimena , Boccia, Salerno, 1980, pp. 283.
• Heavies angiola, rome Genaro (1990), Serino. Angelo Solimene Insigne Painter , Municipality of Serino, Serino (AV), pp. 23.
• Carotenuto Simona (2015), “The interventions in the paternal shop”, in Pavone Mario Alberto, Carotenuto Simona, Francesco Solimena. From youth activity to the years of maturity (1674-1710) , New culture, Rome 2015.
• of reason Achilles – The golden century of Neapolitan painting – VIII- TOMO – pag. 518 – Naples 1998 – 2001
• of reason Achilles – color photographic repertoire of the Neapolitan seventeenth century – II Tomo – pag. 113 – 114 – Naples 2011