Battle scene with knights

17th century, Neapolitan School

Battle scene with knights

Oil on canvas, 76 x 104 cm

With frame, 93 x 118 cm

A genre that found wide acceptance in Neapolitan painting of the seventeenth century and flattering success among Neapolitan collectors was certainly that of the battle. The exponents of the nobility and the upper middle class of the city loved to adorn the walls of their halls with battle scenes depicting single acts of heroism or complex combats that exalted patriotism and warlike ability, virtues with which the members of the wealthy aristocracy of the time loved to identify. The Church, in the Neapolitan area, was also at the forefront of commissions, commissioning artists to depict the spectacular triumphs of Christianity over the infidels, such as the memorable naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, which marked a turning point in history with the great victory over the Turks, becoming a repeated iconographic motif full of devotional value, replicated several times due to the interest of the Dominican order, very devoted to the Madonna of the Rosary, who benevolently followed earthly events from above in the heavens and to whom the merits of the victory of the Catholic coalition over the Ottoman army were attributed. Other themes dear to the Church in the genre were taken from the Old and New Testaments, such as the Victory of Constantine at the Milvian Bridge or Saint James at the Battle of Clodius. Among the main Neapolitan artists of that period, several specialized in battle scenes: among these we remember Francesco Graziani, known as Ciccio Napoletano, a battle painter active between Naples and Rome in the second half of the 1610th century, Andrea De Lione, who lived in Naples from 1685 to XNUMX, a versatile narrator of battles without heroes, of knights attacking or retreating, of profane scenes immersed in a wild and primordial nature, yet already classicized, and Carlo Coppola. Close to the manner of our painting is also the production of one of Coppola's most famous students, Giovanni Luigi Rocco: the canvas in question shows analogies with two Battle scenes between Christians and Muslims currently part of a private collection in Parma.