WW2 Damage to Art and Monuments in Naples
Even
today, there is significant visible physical damage
from WWII air-raids in Naples. Most of it is in the
eastern part of the city, the industrial section, not
far from the port. Some of it looks as if it had been
hit yesterday. There seem to be no plans to tear down
many structures that are beyond repair, though,
strangely, in many cases newer buildings have sprung
up next to them
The damage to the cultural heritage
of the city was not as bad, but was significant. The
most famous example was the destruction
of the church of Santa Chiara (photo, right). As
I look at the relatively short list of damaged
cultural sites in the passage below, it seems to me
that most of them have been restored. The passage is
an excerpt from an article by Rensselaer W. Lee
published in the January, 1945 issue of College
Art Journal (Vol. 4, number 2, pp. 82-83,
published by the College Art Association; ISSN: 15436322). The name of the
article is “The Effect of the War on the Renaissance
and Baroque Art in Italy.”
“…Like
Palermo,
Naples was severely damaged by air attacks and,
once more, Baroque churches with their broad naves
and large domes were heavy sufferers. Here, as
elsewhere, first aid was given as soon as possible
by our Monuments officers who were assiduous in
supervising the reinforcing of walls, the shoring
up of arches and ceilings as well as the removal
of rubble and its careful sifting for fragments of
painting or sculpture that it might contain. About
forty churches or 10% of the total in Naples were
damaged; but in less than one month after the
Allied occupation six projects of rehabilitation
and restoration were under way and not many months
later twenty-six projects had been started, with
twelve more approved.
Among
Baroque
churches S. Paolo
Maggiore, the Gerolomini,
the Annunziata, built
over an earlier foundation in 1760 by Vanvitelli, and S. Pietro
Martire all suffered severe damage when high
explosives pierced roofs or domes; S. Chiara's roof
collapsed and the rich Baroque interior, which
covered a Gothic under structure, has been badly
injured.
For
the history of Renaissance art the most
interesting building in Naples is the church of
Mont' Oliveto which suffered through concussions
and explosions incident to the German aerial
attack of March 15, 1944. The sculptured altar-
piece by Benedetto da Maiano fell to the ground
but all the fragments are reported to be in a good
state of preservation so that restoration will be
possible. Antonio Rossellino's famous relief of
the Nativity in the same church
is presumably safe; his grave monument of Maria of
Aragon on an adjacent wall has been broken into
fragments, but these have been carefully gathered
together by Monuments officers and the fractures
are so clean that reconstruction is assured.
The
tomb of Cardinal Brancaccio at S. Angelo a Nilo
with Donatello's exquisite relief of the
Assumption has not been reported damaged and
although an Italian source reports the Castel Nuovo hit, no
damage apparently was suffered by the quattrocento
sculptures of the arch celebrating the triumph of
Alfonso I in 1443. In
the notorious burning of
the University, Baroque painting suffered a
loss when three pictures by Solimena perished
along with 50,000 volumes. North of Naples a great
Baroque masterpiece of the 18th
century, Vanvitelli's Royal Palace at Caserta with
its wonderful garden, in spite of some damage to
the main building, has suffered no irreparable
harm…”
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