The painting depicts Judith in the act of cutting off the head of the Assyrian general Holofernes who was besieging the city of Betula. The Jewish heroine, assisted by the slave Abra, who actively participates in the beheading, embodies chastity and moral strength. Compared to most of the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who chose for the representation of this biblical episode the moment of the escape of the two women from the enemy camp after the assassination, or Judith who triumphantly shows the head of Holofernes, Gentileschi chose the the most dramatic moment, namely that of the beheading, taking inspiration from the famous canvas with the same subject by Caravaggio now in Palazzo Barberini. The painting was also related to the trauma suffered by the painter, who in 1611 was raped by her colleague, Agostino Tassi. It is an early work, performed in Rome between 1612 and 1613, as evidenced by the strong naturalistic imprint that is accompanied by some uncertainties in the composition and anatomy. The version preserved in the Uffizi is considered by experts to be later than this one. The rigid position of the Judith's arm finds a direct reference in the homonymous painting by Caravaggio, while the figure of Holofernes denotes the knowledge of the work with an analogous subject by Rubens, as well as that depicting David and Goliath of his father, Orazio Gentileschi. Some copies of the painting and a smaller version on blackboard preserved in the Archbishop's Palace in Milan are known.

The cold language, devoid of subjective participation, elaborated according to executive methods derived from mass culture, with which Warhol expresses images and icons of our contemporaneity, is inclined to undergo a greater emotional involvement in the works created for the Neapolitan solo show in 1985. The stereotyped image of Vesuvius, to which the artist looks, undergoes, in fact, a sudden chromatic ignition through which it expresses the destructive violence of nature. Borrowing, therefore, a recurring theme of the traditional iconography of Neapolitan landscape painting, Warhol transfigures it with the impetuousness of the gesture and the expressive power of the industrial colors that make the image of the erupting Vesuvius a disturbing presence, admonition of a impending danger.

On a dark background, cut transversely by a red curtain, are portrayed Paul III and his nephews, Cardinal Alessandro and Ottavio, sons of Pier Luigi. Tiziano realizes the very personal interpretation of a family portrait making every single physiognomy, every gesture represented the vehicle of a state of mind: in an apparent calm you can feel the climate of suspicion and conspiracies, of fear and mistrust that made the atmosphere so gloomy. of the Farnese house. The portrait was made just when Paul III, who even had close relations with Charles V by arranging the marriage of Octavius with Margaret, the natural daughter of the emperor, moved diplomatically to make agreements with France through the marriage of another nephew, Horace , with Diana of France. Ottavio in an obsequious pose seems to flatter his grandfather who, unstable, with a wary expression, remains in the chair. A symphony of reds is in this case the pictorial medium used for the work, which the artist, who arrived in Rome in 1545, left incomplete to return to Venice in May 1546, disappointed by the lack of answers to the promises that Cardinal Alessandro had cleverly used as a means to persuade the artist to work for the Farnese.

the fascinating and sensual myth of Danae, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, to whom oracle had predicted death at the hands of a nephew, is narrated. To make it unreachable and thus prevent his daughter from procreating, Acrisius had chosen to enclose it in a bronze tower. But Jupiter, transformed into a rain of gold, joined the woman and from the union was born Perseus, the mythical slayer of the Medusa. The myth of Danae becomes a pretext for Titian to create one of the most natural female figures of the sixteenth century. The young woman, whose face is probably portrayed Angela, the cardinal's lover, softly lying on a white sheet, placidly welcomes the golden cloud that materializes in a shower of coins, perhaps an allusion to the profession of a courtesan. The rarefied atmosphere makes the white meats of Danae and Cupid even more natural, with shadows soaked in color that turn on the bodies in gentle and gradual chiaroscuro transitions. Titian, having begun the painting in Venice, probably finished it in his Roman studio at the Belvedere Palace in the Vatican where, in 1545, Michelangelo saw it and, on this very occasion, praised its extraordinary "color", complaining, however, of the lack of design. . Destined for the private rooms of Cardinal Alessandro, the painting, once in Naples, was hit by censorship in 1815, when it was decided to allocate it to the so-called "Cabinet of obscene paintings" of the Royal Bourbon Museum, where the works of "improper subject" were exhibited ".

The young woman is obliged with great elegance; a marten skin descends on the right shoulder leaning on the gloved hand; an apron, an ornament in use among the northern nobility, is draped over the heavy silk dress. The careful hairstyle, softened by a precious pearl clasp, leaves the perfect oval of the face uncovered. The work, one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian Mannerism, is certainly one of the finest examples of a female figure of the sixteenth century and represents one of the highest points of the brilliant experiments on optical deformations, characteristic of the artist's activity. Intrigued by the rendering of bodies reflected on curved surfaces and by the infinite representative possibilities of painting, the icy and intellectual Parmigianino creates a figure that is only apparently still but which, as suggested by the deformed rendering of the sleeve in the foreground and the movement, barely mentioned, of the leg left, is in the act of turning around. Even in the green background it participates in this game of optical effects, because a source of light, at the bottom right, is about to be revealed precisely by the rotating movement in progress. The precious painting is not documented and the dating varies between the artist's Roman years and the Thirties, which mark the return to Parma and a more accentuated reflection on the figures, symbolically deformed, such as the famous long-necked Madonna, now in the Uffizi .

In a pale and autumnal landscape a line of blind people walk slowly: a ditch awaits them into which they will fall without safety. The Gospel parable - when a blind man leads another, you see them both fall into the ditch - becomes for the great painter the pretext to represent a varied and derelict humanity, investigated with a caricatural detail in which each character assumes a expression conditioned by the position he occupies: tragically frightened the one who is falling into the ditch, dazed and unaware of his last in line. Masterpiece of the mature phase, the thin linen canvas is signed and dated 1568 in the lower left. In the background, in the distance, the church of the village of Pede de Saint - Anne, near Brussels, is depicted. The work has always been considered, together with the Misantropo, one of the masterpieces of the Farnese collection.

The myth represented, narrated by Venus, then decided to attempt female vanity by intentionally dropping the golden apples of the garden of the Hesperides during the race. The moment represented is precisely the one in which Atalanta, eager to possess the precious apples, stopped to pick up the second one, thus allowing the young lover to be able to overcome it. The theme becomes for Reni nothing more than a pretext to create one of his most balanced classicism works. The two figures, placed on a single advanced plane, devoid of spatial continuity with the deep and distant horizon, are placed in a sphere without space or time, mysterious and inaccessible. Arranged in an intricate game of diagonals that intersect and move away, the bodies define a sort of frozen pose, crystallized in the still atmosphere imbued with a lunar and almost metaphysical light. Made at the beginning of the third decade of the seventeenth century, a short distance from the first version now in the Prado Museum, the canvas passed through some private Milanese and Roman collections before being purchased by the Bourbons in 1802.

the moment of Christ's transfiguration on Mount Tabor is represented in the presence of the prophets Moses and Elijah and the apostles Peter, James and John. With an original and modern interpretation, Giovanni Bellini immerses the event in a natural space that becomes an integral part of the scene, losing the role of pure background typical of many fifteenth-century representations. The evident study of natural rendering is accentuated by the choice of inserting the figure of Christ, who emanates light, on the same level as the prophets but, fundamentally, of depicting him as a man among men, firmly stable, with his feet resting on the ground. The depth of field is suggested by the different levels on which the composition is structured: the rocky ridge, the three frightened apostles, the characters standing on the edge of the hill behind which a series of low hills follow one another defined by ever-changing tones. of green.

The Madonna, inside a white stone structure that allows a glimpse of a landscape, holds the Child between two angels who look at her intently. The work would be a juvenile test of Botticelli, who carefully experimented the theme of the Madonna and Child, first inspired by the plastic and solid interpretations of Filippo Lippi and then identifying in an accentuated linearism the most appropriate means to represent elegant and beautiful images which are typical of its mature phase. Our Madonna would be a test of the years 1468-69, when the tension towards pure and spiritual beauty became for Botticelli the primary objective of his entirely intellectual art. The panel was kept in Palazzo Farnese and was sent to Naples in 1760.

The group, donated in 1985 by the Catello heirs, is composed, on a wooden and cork rock, of the three figures of the Madonna, Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus, modeled by the Neapolitan sculptor Giuseppe Sammartino, author of the Veiled Christ, of the Sansevero chapel of Naples. Unlike the other figures made with only the head and limbs in terracotta on a body made of wire and tow, the angel suspended above, attributed to Salvatore Franco, is modeled in the round; the angel in the foreground on the left is attributable to Lorenzo Mosca, and the puttino to Nicola Ingaldo, artisans active in Naples between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the following one. Francesco Gallo and the Vassallo brothers, specialized in animals, are the authors, the first of the ox and the donkey, and the second of the sheep.

Coming from the Quarto del Prior of the Certosa di San Martino, it is an intense psychological portrait and one of the most widespread images of the Neapolitan seventeenth century. Often referred by critics to Massimo Stazione, it is instead by the hand of Guarino, who trained in Naples with the naturalists followers of Caravaggio, in particular Ribera and the first Stanzione. The canvas can be dated to around 1640: the strong chiaroscuro of the saint's face is indicative of the naturalistic training of the master, while a sentimental vein and a subtle sensuality deprive the composition of sacredness. Of great quality is the dress and the very white cloth stained with blood that covers her breast, just mutilated.

It depicts the Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli, mathematician and student of proportions, while he carries out one of the problems of geometry reported in Euclid's Elements. Next to him an elegant young man who could be identified with Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. On the green table are arranged the tools of the trade, the compass, the protractor, the chalk, the sponge, the open book of Euclid and a closed one on which the letters LI.R.LUC.B stand out, to be dissolved with this inscription: Liber reverend Lucae Burgenis, which would refer to the Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportione, mathematical treatise by Luca Pacioli, published in Venice in 1494 and dedicated to Guidobaldo. Suspended from a thread hangs a transparent polyhedron which reflects a building very similar to the Ducal Palace in Urbino.

The classic subject, invented by the sophist Prodico and perhaps suggested by Fulvio Orsini, librarian of the Farnese family, depicts the apparition of two women to the mythical Hercules and his doubt in the choice between one and the other. In fact, Pleasure, the young woman in a succinct and transparent dress, points out to him the "flat road" between playing cards, masks and musical instruments, while Virtue, the woman dressed in red and blue, points out the steep ascent of a mount which there is winged Pegasus, emblem of the Farnese family, which will lead it to heaven. In the lower left corner the poet immortalizes the hero's deeds, assuring him undying fame. Made in 1596 for Cardinal Odoardo, it was placed in the Farnese palace in the center of the vault of the "camerino di Ercole" decorated with examples of virtues to emulate. Hannibal, still mindful of the Bolognese frescoes of Palazzo Sampieri, appears already intent on combining "idea" and "nature" on the examples of Raphaelesque classicism and antiquity. Both the compositional scheme, taken from a classical relief, and the head of Hercules, taken from that of the Farnese Hercules, at that time still located in the courtyard of the palace, refer to it. Starting from 1662 the canvas, replaced by a copy still in place, underwent various movements and then became part of the "Cabinet of obscene paintings" of the Royal Bourbon Museum.

The painting, from the d'Avalos collection, is signed and dated 1637. The depicted theme refers to the most dramatic moment of the famous ancient myth: after having challenged Apollo in a musical contest and after losing, Marsyas is punished for his audacity and flayed alive. The dynamism of the composition, played on the crossed diagonals of the figures and on the fluttering mantle of Apollo, is combined with the pictorial treatment of the chromatic material, which is invested with brilliant luministic effects, testifying to the painter's adhesion to the pictorial current which had established itself in Naples since the mid-thirties. A signed version of this subject can be found in the Musées Royaux des Beaux - Arts in Brussels.

Considered to be part of the same polyptych, originally flanked by pillars with Franciscan blessed scattered as early as the eighteenth century, the tables were made, perhaps at the request of Alfonso of Aragon, between 1444 and 1446 for the Franciscan basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore in Naples , from where they were transferred to the museum respectively in 1922 and 1808. Colantonio was the first to paint the lower panel depicting the old Saint Jerome releasing the lion's paw from a thorn, who became, out of gratitude, his gentle companion.

Exhibited at the Promotrice in 1866, the painting was purchased by King Vittorio Emanuele II for the modern art gallery of Capodimonte; although the work was commissioned by the Swiss Fierz, he gladly accepted a copy. The painting is placed in the youth phase, a moment in which the artist ranged from the old posillipist system to the new colors and layouts of the Resin School. It already contains all the elements of mature production: the choice of a theme of symbolic content combined with a concrete vision of the landscape, the interest in typical and folkloristic motifs, the propensity for an aesthetic painting with light and bright colors.