Women in Spanish Naples. Another Seventeenth Century
Italian translation of the exhibition catalogue published by Allemandi.
Naples, Gallerie d’Italia, November 20, 2025 – March 22, 2026.
Following the success of the exhibition Artemisia Gentileschi in Naples, the Gallerie d’Italia present the first show entirely devoted to the role of women in the arts of seventeenth-century Naples. The theme has never before been explored in a systematic way, despite the growing interest in gender issues.
The exhibition opens with the figures of “foreign” women artists such as Lavinia Fontana and Fede Galizia. Their works, created for local patrons at the beginning of the century and in evocative dialogue with the innovations introduced by Caravaggio, bear witness to the dense commercial and collecting networks of which the city was a crossroads.
Momenti imprescindibili dell’intera vicenda sono l’arrivo di Artemisia Gentileschi – di cui si presentano importanti dipinti mai esposti in Italia – e il breve passaggio in città di Giovanna Garzoni. Ampio spazio è inoltre dedicato alla personalità della napoletana Diana Di Rosa, detta Annella di Massimo, autentico alter ego della Gentileschi. Una sezione tematica è dedicata alle “dive” napoletane: Adriana Basile – cantante di fama internazionale – e Giulia De Caro, il cui percorso da prostituta a impresaria teatrale è emblematico di riscatto e emancipazione. La mostra valorizza figure anche meno note, come Teresa Del Po, pittrice e miniatrice, o la ceroplasta Caterina De Iulianis, quest’ultima posta in dialogo con la grande scultrice del barocco andaluso Luisa Roldán.
The exhibition is curated by Antonio Ernesto Denunzio, Raffaella Morselli, Giuseppe Porzio, and Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, and is held under the institutional patronage of the Embassy of Spain in Italy as well as the patronage of the City of Naples.