In yesterday's post we mentioned Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero. A rather mysterious man, Di Sangro was born in Torremaggiore in 1710, and became an anatomist and inventor. His interests in chemistry and alchemy meant that he became well known as a magician and a "cursed prince" for his strange scientific experiments.
Legends say that he had carved out of the bones and skin of seven cardinals seven chairs (that may be a legend, but he apparently made a perpetual lamp using some bones and a skull...) and that he had turned into a metal statue a woman who had rejected him and a man who had defended her (in fact they say that the anatomical models preserved in the underground rooms of the Sansevero Chapel in Naples are not models, but a man and a woman in whose veins the prince had injected a metallising liquid that helped him obtaining a perfect model of the circulatory system, spooky isn't it?). In 1744 the prince started renovating the Naples-based family chapel, now known as the Sansevero Chapel.
There are further legends about this chapel (some say it was built on the same location of an ancient temple dedicated to Isis) that preserves some of the finest works of art you will see in Naples, such as the "Veiled Christ" by Giuseppe Sanmartino, an incredibly moving and mesmerising artwork as the veil covering the body of the dead Jesus looks almost real.
Another legend says that some of the veils and nets covering the other statues in the chapel are not made from marble, but they were real fabrics turned into marble by a secret alchemical process the mad prince had discovered.
But there are further legends about the chapel and in particular about its floor, designed by Raimondo di Sangro and commissioned to artist Francesco Celebrano in 1760.
The entire floor was covered in an intricate design, as proved by what we are left with (the original flooring was damaged in 1889; the chapel was refloored in Neapolitan cotto and enamelled in yellow and blue, the colours of the di Sangro arms) and by the 19th century lithograph in the Museum archives.
The design consists of alternate hooked crosses highlighted by a continuous line of white marble that runs continuously.
The polychrome inlay has different shades, from blue to white, giving depth to the composition. Along the perimeter of the nave ran a darker band, also decorated with an intricate line.
The floor was an allegory: the labyrinth motif, belongs to the ancient classical tradition and it is linked to hermetic knowledge, it represents the difficulty of the pathway which the initiate must follow to gain knowledge.
The hooked crosses referenced cosmic movement; the concentric squares pointed at the tetragon of the elements instead. Besides, labyrinths were also considered as the alchemists' image of the Great Work.
We do not know if the prince of Sansevero had any other special meanings hiding behind the maze motif, but we do know that he never managed to see the finished flooring that to this day remains one of the most fascinating geometrical motifs ever created, even though we are left only with fragments of it.
Fancy taking the labyrinth challenge and recreate this motif in your pieces (clothes? accessories? pieces of furniture?)? Design sisters Marita and Frida Francescon have already done so a while back by creating, in collaboration with the Museo Cappella Sansevero in Naples and with Ceramiche Refin, labyrinthine tiles with motifs inspired by the floor of the Sansevero chapel. They also applied the motif to the "Antica-Mente" table made with Lg's HI-MACS®.
Nobody has re-employed the geometrical maze motif in fashion yet, but bets are open as this is the sort of stuff you may easily end up seeing in one of Pierpaolo Piccioli's evening gowns or capes for Valentino.
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