Audacity, Delicacy and Rhetoric. Giacomo Serpotta and the Cycle of the Seraphic Virtues for the Basilica of San Francesco in Palermo

Abstract

Giacomo Serpotta (1656-1732) is perhaps one of the greatest sculptors of the Baroque. He is still a perfect unknown in universal terms, despite enjoying an evident and growing historiographical recognition. His activity in a relatively peripheral Italian context (Sicily) and his specialization in stucco technique may be the reason for his persistent consideration more as a decorator than as a sculptor. However, his celebrated contributions in sacred spaces led to the presence of the sculptural element playing a decisive role and becoming a key factor in terms of function, ornamentation, discourse and message, making the desired conversion of the whole into an authentic rhetorical artifact, of incalculable communicative and persuasive effectiveness. This article analyzes and critically retrieves such aspects, while studying theanthological series of the Seraphic Virtues created around 1723 for the Basilica of San Francesco in Palermo, from a double historical-artistic and aesthetic-iconographic perspective.