PhD Program in Historical studies
The Charterhouse of San Martino
Fanzago’s work as an architect began in 1623 alongside Giovanni Giacomo di ConfortoGiovanni Giacomo Conforto or di Conforto (1569-1630) was an architect who designed some of the most famous churches of Naples. Many of his works, however, were completed by other artists, above all Cosimo Fanzago. Of late Mannerist training, he contributed greatly to the development of the Neapolitan Baroque. Among his most important works were the churches of Santa Maria della Verità (Saint Mary of Truth) and Santa Teresa degli Scalzi (Saint Teresa of the Discalced) and the cloister of Monte Oliveto. He worked with Fanzago on the Chapter house of San Martino. in the Carthusian monastery of Saint Martin, where he was the director of projects from 1627 to 1656. His impact is therefore very strong in one of the largest monuments of Naples, an admirable example of Baroque art and architecture. Fanzago especially worked on the decoration of the great cloister, in which he personally executed some of the busts of the Carthusian Saints: Blessed Nicholas Albergati, Saint Hugo, Saint Bruno, while Blessed Landino and Saint Anselm were designed by him but then physically made by his pupils. It was Fanzago who designed the new façade of the church of the monastery, which was only partially built, also working at the chapel of Saint Bruno, the floor of the choir and numerous architectural decorative furnishings that highlight his creative and innovative genius, among them, the polychrome decorations in some of the chapels, the inlays in the floor of the nave, the rosettes in the counter pilasters and the cherubs placed at the entrance of the numerous chapels.
In the same Neapolitan period Fanzago worked at both the Basilica Shrine of the Gesù Vecchio and the church of the Gesù Nuovo (New Jesus). In the Gesù Vecchio (the Old Jesus), in particular, the artist has left his best works as a sculptor: with allusions to David, but mainly to Isaiah and Jeremiah. The last two, however, were executed in the fifties of the seventeenth century.