Diana De Rosa

Talented painter of the seventeenth century, she is active in the Naples of the Viceroyalty. With most of her works lost over time and little biographical documentation, Diana De Rosa remains a fascinating and mysterious figure of Neapolitan art, whose artistic personality is problematic due to the difficulty of identifying works of her production among the surviving ones, often dispersed in private collections, and among others on which he had simply collaborated. She was born in Naples in 1602 and was a highly appreciated and sought-after painter, certainly not like her more famous contemporary Artemisia Gentileschi, who, Roman, died in the Neapolitan city in 1653, ten years after her. Better known as Annella De Rosa or Annella di Massimo, her story sheds light on the Neapolitan artistic reality of the 17th century, in which entire families and relatives were dedicated to pictorial art. Daughter of the painter Tommaso De Rosa and Caterina De Mauro, she was the sister of Giovan Francesco (Pacecco) De Rosa, also a painter. When his father died in 1610, his mother remarried the painter Filippo Vitale, an important exponent of naturalistic painting of Caravaggio ancestry. Diana was probably at the school of this stepfather, who passed on to her the first rudiments of the art. In 1626 she married Agostino Beltrano, painter from the workshop of Massimo Stanzione, one of the most important painters of the seventeenth century in Naples, nicknamed "the Neapolitan Guido Reni". Diana was Stanzione's favorite pupil: hence her also being known as Annella di Massimo. A romantic and tragic legend developed around the figure of Diana. The eighteenth-century biographer Bernardo De Dominici said that she was killed with a sword by her husband Agostino Beltrano out of jealousy, since he suspected an affair between his wife and the master Stanzione. However, modern historical research has disproved this dramatic legend. In 1951 the scholar Prota Giurleo found Diana's original death certificate, which attests that the painter died of illness on 7 December 1643, not at the hands of her husband. The document also reveals that Diana had had a successful career, leaving her children a decent sum of money earned through her artistic activity and that of her husband. Like the painters of her time, Diana-Annella painted numerous works of sacred subjects for churches or for private devotion. Unfortunately, two highly praised paintings with the Birth and Death of the Virgin placed on the ceiling of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà dei Turchini were lost and destroyed during the collapse of the roof in 1638. Perhaps the sketch of the Birth of the Virgin remains in the Capodimonte Museum. Also lost are the Virgin appearing to Benedictine saints in the church of Monteoliveto (Sant'Anna dei Lombardi) and Saint John the Baptist in the desert of the sacristy of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Pizzofalcone. Among the works that we can admire today, two are exhibited in the Diocesan Museum of Naples: the Marriage of the Virgin and, coming from the church of San Giovanni Maggiore, Jesus in the workshop of San Giuseppe. Recent is the discovery, in a private Neapolitan collection, of a Martyrdom of Saint Agatha with the clearly recognizable signature "Annella di Massimo", which confirms the contemporary use of this nickname, contrary to what was believed in the past. The nickname "Annella di Massimo", which was thought to have been invented by De Dominici in the eighteenth century, dates back to the time, as demonstrated by some ancient inventories from 1648 and 1715 which cite works attributed to this painter. Diana De Rosa represents a significant example of the women artists of the Neapolitan seventeenth century, who managed to emerge in an environment dominated by men, building successful professional careers within the family workshops and schools of the great masters of the time. His figure, shrouded in history and legend, continues to fascinate scholars and art enthusiasts, testifying to the vitality of the Neapolitan artistic environment of the 17th century.