The private museums of Palermo & Naples
Majolica, The Leopard & Caravaggio
One of the great benefits of making an extended stay in a city is that you don’t just visit the ‘must-see’ sites that every tourist knows about. Europe’s capitals are brimming with fascinating small museums, many of them privately owned and operated. Robert Veel, who leads our Palermo & Naples tour in January 2023, introduces three of them.
The rooms of genius – a majolica tile museum
There are many ways of telling the story of Palermo and Naples through art. One collector has chosen to do so through majolica tiles, creating the Museum of Majolica Genius (Museo delle maioliche "Stanze al genio") in Palermo.
Majolica is a distinctly southern Italian art form, arising from the interaction of Spanish influences (from Majorca, hence the name majolica) and the ceramic skills bought into Sicily by Arabs in the 9th century. The owner of this private museum, now in his 50s, began collecting tiles as an 11-year old, when they were being thrown into dumps around Palermo. Since then the collection has expanded, covering the walls of every room in this elegant private apartment, named after the statue of genius in the adjacent piazza. The owner still lives in the apartment, but opens it to visitors for several afternoons a week.
Rooms are organised to systematically display the range of majolica tiles created in both Sicily and Naples, covering different geographical regions and different time periods. The oldest tiles are nearly 500 years old and come from inland villages in south-east Sicily where the Arab influence persisted well into the modern age. Colours are the same as those used in earlier Arab pottery. In other rooms, the arrival of Spanish influence is easy to pick, with complex geometric patterns, similar to the much-loved azuejos of the Iberian peninsula, and some tiles of high artistic value to cater to aristocratic tastes of Spanish colonists.
The Neapolitan part of the collection shows different, but equally complex, influences. During the reign of the Bourbon monarchs in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum were rediscovered and excavated, and so some tiles make direct reference to the mosaics discovered here – such as the famous ‘Cave Canem’ floor mosaic at the entrance to the so-called House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. Large pictorial panels composed of many tiles also appear, similar to the elaborate nativity scene images of rustic life so favoured by King Ferdinand of Naples, the ‘peasant king’.
The pleasure of this private museum is twofold. Not only is the tile collection itself of considerable artistic and historical interest, but the elegant arrangement of the tiles in the apartment is a triumph of interior decoration.
Palazzo Lanza Tomasi - A Sicilian Palace
When Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard was published posthumously in 1958 it was a sensation. The novel is set in 1860, just after Garibaldi had landed in Marsala in western Sicily, drawing the timeless island of Sicily, with millennia of foreign rule, into the unification process. The Leopard presented a complex description of Sicilian society, attitudes and traditions, and helped explain the island to Italian and international readers, as well as arguably the Sicilians themselves. Just consider the following speech, given by the main character, Prince Fabrizio, to a visiting parliamentarian from the north:
“This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing around us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from all directions, who were at once obeyed, soon detested and always misunderstood; their sole means of expression works of art we found enigmatic and taxes we found only too intelligible, and which they spent elsewhere. All these events have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as a terrifying insularity of mind.”
The Palazzo Lanza Tomasi in Palermo was the last residence of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and provides a direct connection to The Leopard. The palace was purchased in 1849 by Prince Giulio Fabrizio, great-grandfather of the novelist, who based the indomitable main character, Don Fabrizio, on this great-grandfather. The palace itself is described clearly in the novel as the Palermo residence of the prince, as indeed it was in real life. Family portraits fill the staircases and salons, there is a great collection of literary memorabilia relating to the The Leopard as well as significant painting and objects d’arte.
Enjoy a virtual walk through of Palazzo Lanza Tomasi in the video below:
Academy Travel’s visit to the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi comprises a guided tour of the historic rooms plus an aperitif, hosted by none other than Duke Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi and his wife. Gioacchino is reputed to be the model for the rambunctious character of Tancredi in The Leopard.
Caravaggio in private collections - Naples
Naples is home to three fine paintings by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, two of which are in private hands.
The Pio Monte della Miseracordia was founded in 1601 by seven nobleman, who would meet at the abovementioned Ospedale degli incurabili on Fridays and minister to the sick. A separate church, in the middle of the city, was consecrated in 1606. Caravaggio was commissioned to depict The Seven Acts of Mercy for the church in 1607, when he was at the height of his fame and powers. The complex and powerful painting stands nearly four metres tall and two-and-a-half metres wide, simultaneously depicting the seven works of charity in the one setting. As well as viewing the Caravaggio itself, it’s worth touring the offices of the still-functioning brotherhood which surround the church to gain more of the context for Caravaggio’s masterpiece.
Walking down the Via Toledo towards the San Carlo Opera House, one passes the Palazzo Zevallos. This fine art nouveau building (or ‘liberty style’, as the Italians call it) houses the Neapolitan collection of the Intesa Sanpaolo bank, one of Italy’s largest financial institutions. Most of the works in the collection are from the 18th and 19th century, and very interesting, but most visitors head straight for the room containing Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St Ursula, painted in 1610 and thought to be the artist’s last work. Caravaggio was on the run from the Knights of Malta, from whose prison he had escaped, and he died shortly afterwards. Typically dramatic, Caravaggio’s canvass captures the exact moment when Ursula’s killer’s arrow has pierced her flesh. It’s not to be missed.
These private sites feature on Academy Travel’s tour, Palermo & Naples: Art, History & Culture in Italy’s Southern Capitals this coming January. This 14-day residential-style tour, led by Robert Veel, offers an opportunity to enjoy long stays in both cities and experience everyday life, after the bustle of the holiday season has subsided.
Limited places remain. Click here to for full details >
