GIACOMO DEL PÒ (Palermo, 1654 - Naples, 1726) LEONARDO COCCORANTE (Naples, 1680 - 1750) Resurrection of Lazarus Oil on canvas, 56.5X71.5 cm Celebrated by De Dominici (40, p. 280) as an excellent painter and worthy pupil of the great Domenichino, in his Storia pittorica Luigi Lanzi (1845, 20, p. 284), considers him a disciple of Lanfranco rather than the Bolognese painter, 'who most appealed to the two Poos who especially drew their colouring from him'. However, the natural rocaille propensity of the artist, who was also a skilful interpreter of Neapolitan culture of the Baroque age and of illusionistic decoration, is undoubted. This propensity is demonstrated by the canvas under examination, characterised by a narrative and chiaroscuro tenor of considerable effect, in turn accentuated by the intervention of Leonardo Coccorante to whom we owe the peculiar architectural backdrop. These characteristics, as we have said, allowed Pò to create celebrated decorative undertakings in the most important Neapolitan palaces and spectacular room paintings, so much so that he can be considered the most original interpreter of painting in the early 18th century, when the artistic scene was largely occupied by the academicising hegemony of Francesco Solimena. A hegemony to which the author responded with his 'picturesque and bizarre manner' (De Dominici), imbued with Jordanesque memories, echoes of Genoese Baroque and a refined Rococo sensibility. Returning to the painting presented here, we can assert that it is of the highest quality and testifies to the masterly harmony between the two authors, and it was again De Dominici who recalled that Coccorante used to entrust the figure pieces to his colleague, who: 'tuned with extravagant inventions of figures, with night spells, with fires, torches and torchlight the beautiful dungeons full of extravagant fantasies'. Documenting this 'fantastic' inclination is also the painting of The Sorceress Circe in the Pinacoteca D'Errico in Matera, which, set in a dark cavern with ruins, emphasises how during the first decade Del Po' was devoted to this kind of representation with a 'bizarre and novel tenor in the accidents of light, in the reverberations, in the flashes' (Lanzi 1795-1796, ed. 1968, I, p. 470). It is therefore evident how the artist manages to renew the pictorial legacy of the Baroque age in a highly personal manner, looking to the examples of Luca Giordano, Mattia Preti and Salvator Rosa, expressing a complex figurative, literary and, in particular, theatrical culture. We thank Riccardo Lattuada for the attribution. Reference bibliography: B. De Dominici, Vita de' pittori scultori ed architetti napoletani, III, Naples 1743, (Anastatic reprint ed. Forni - 1979) pp. 496-517 M. Picone, per la conoscenza del pittore Giacomo Del Po', in Bollettino d'Arte, 1957, XLII, pp. 163-172, nos. 2-3-4 L. Lanzi, storia pittorica della Italia [1808], edited by M. Capucci, Florence 1968, I, p. 469 N. Spinosa, Civiltà del Settecento a Napoli, Naples 1979, I, pp. 177-295 R. Lattuada, Il Barocco a Napoli e in Campania, Naples 1988, p. 118 Settecento napoletano. Sulle ali dell'aquila imperiale 1703 ; 1734, exhibition catalogue edited by N. Spinosa and W. Prohaska, Naples 1994, pp. 77-92, pp. 178; 187 R. Lattuada. Dipinti della collezione D'Errico di Palazzo San Gervasio a Matera, Naples 2002, pp. 62-65 R. Muzii, Leonardo Coccorante in La pittura di paesaggio in Italia. Il Settecento, edited by A. Ottani Cavina and E. Calbi, Milan 2005, pp. 158-160, with previous bibliography