Gli argenti perduti della certosa di San Martino. Intorno a un reliquiario di Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (e a un rame del Solimena)

The Lost Silverworks of the Charterhouse of San Martino: On a Reliquary by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (and a Copper by Solimena) This article reveals previously unpublished documents concerning an important reliquary created in 1717 by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, in collaboration with an unknown silversmith, for the church of the Charterhouse of San Martino in Naples. These documents allow us to establish that the artist reused metal from various objects, mostly silver, donated to the Neapolitan monastery by one Francesco Antonio Pisano for the creation of the exquisite, yet unfortunately lost, piece. Additionally, the precious stones that once adorned the frame of Francesco Solimena’s copper painting depicting the Risen Christ – used instead as the door of the tabernacle at the back of the wooden altar of the church of San Martino – were incorporated into the reliquary. The article also discusses an unknown early 19th-century inventory of the Neapolitan charterhouse, which attests to the loss of its extensive collection of gold and silverware due to the requisitions imposed by King Ferdinand IV at the end of the 18th century.