Between sacred and profane: Metamorphoses within the Baroque architecture of Domenico Antonio Vaccaro

Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (Naples 1678-1745), along with Ferdinando Sanfelice, are the protagonists of the second Baroque era in Naples. Both artists, disciples of Francesco Solimena, tended towards Rococo (Vaccaro) and the neoclassical Enlightenment (Sanfelice), and, in accordance with the spirit that characterizes the contemporary artistic and cultural environment, they furnished the intellectual debauchery ideals since their fanciful inventions in the fi eld of temporary constructions, which they already experienced in youth, to the adventurous architecture of their maturity. Domenico Antonio, the eldest son of Lorenzo (1655-1706), came to architecture late in life, yet he quickly became professionally autonomous and he soon aligned with the contemporary artistic production, both in the fi eld of religious buildings, –working for religious orders and brotherhoods– and residential constructions. Versatile and multifaceted, in the years he passed with Solimena he learned the colour techniques and some of his key issues, including that of metamorphosis, which when employed, however, lost any ideological meaning, becoming a predominant subject in his work