Sulmona and the Abbey of Santo Spirito al Morrone

The city of Sulmona, universally known for being the birthplace of the Roman poet Ovid, can claim a long history yet its vestiges were in large part lost due to frequent seismic events.  After it became a fiefdom of Marcantonio II Borghese, a nephew of Pope Paul V, in 1610, Sulmona underwent an unprecedented urban expansion in the medieval and early modern period in Abruzzo. Great part of its artistic heritage was destroyed or seriously damaged by the earthquake of 1706 which killed over a thousand people. Among the numerous monuments which underwent important reconstruction and restoration was the abbey of Santo Spirito al Morrone, also known as the Badia Morronese: a majestic complex of more than 15.000 square metres, founded by the hermit Pietro Angeleri who went on to become Pope Celestine V and remained for centuries at the centre of the social, economic, religious and cultural life of Ovid’s home town. Even in this case, the Baroque which was added to the artistic complex after the tragic events of 1706 was only revealed after a careful restoration which took place in the last decades of the twentieth century. The Borromini-inspired facade was the work of Donato di Rocco, from Pesco Sannita, while the vault of the refectory was decorated by numerous frescoes with Biblical themes (as in the case of the Ultima cena, Last Supper, and the Nozze di Cana, the Wedding at Cana), placed inside stucco cornices. In these cornices a series of atlantes have been brought to light, under a thick layer of lime and humidity along with many other frescoes in the Civic Museum of Sulmona as in the case of San Benedetto (Saint Benedict) by Anton Raphael MengsAnton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) was born in Germany, in Aussig, but he worked above all in Rome and Madrid. Among the major European exponents of Neoclassism, he was the author of several portraits, among them, two different versions of Pope Clement XIII. He also painted Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and his friend Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Among his most famous works are the Parnaso, a fresco painting in Villa Albani, the Aurora (the Dawn) and the Apoteosi di Ercole (The Apotheosis of Hercules) in the halls of the Royal Palace of Madrid and Perseo e Andromeda (Perseus and Andromeda), now in the Ermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, and the Apoteosi di San Pietro Celestino (The Apotheosis of Saint Peter Celestine), today in the Ermitage museum of St. Petersburg by Giovanni ConcaGiovanni Conca (1690ca-1771) was born in Gaeta and was the disciple of his cousin Sebastiano and then Solimena. With the exception of ten years spent in Torino, he lived in Rome. An artist of secondary importance, few works of his have survived, among them the Apoteosi di San Pietro Celestino, the Apotheosis of Saint Celestine (1750) from the Badia Morronese and now held in the Civic Museum of Sulmona. and a painting of Saints Catherine and Lucia, which still divides critics over its attribution.

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