Magnificence of Marble

Two of the most important Spanish sculptors of the sixteenth century and their work in Naples can be found here together in an opulent art book. During the period between 1513 and 1518, Bartolomé Ordóñez and Diego de Siloé from Burgos in Castile made the southern Italian city blossom into one of the most important European centres of marble sculpture.

Ordóñez and de Siloé were influenced in their art by the work of Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, and continued to develop their own style: poetical and expressive, it was modelled on the Italian Renaissance mixed with borrowings from Antiquity, but without giving up the Naturalism typical of the Iberian peninsula. As masters of a variety of techniques, they found in Naples that the unique marble from Carrara provided a fertile environment for their creative work.

Their activities here provided the decisive impetus for the continued development of artistic taste towards the High Renaissance and laid the foundation stone for the Neapolitan "School" with its main representatives Girolamo Santacroce and Giovanni da Nola.

Magnificence of Marble presents this fascinating confluence of artistic minds and materials that defined an era in sculpture.