Neapolitan school; early 18th century.

Neapolitan school; early eighteenth century.
"Holy Pope".
Silver.
Presents restorations.
It has punches in the base.
It shows base of later period.
Measurements: 50 x 21 x 14 cm; 9 x 18 cm (diameter of the base).
Sculpture made of silver, possibly with a wooden core. The piece of great quality represents with verism and naturalistic will a Pope or bishop, richly dressed with tunic and mantle, touched with miter and, carrying a cross of three crossbeams, symbolizing Christ on Calvary with Gestas and Dimas, the good and the bad thief. In the other hand he holds the bible. The serene face of great naturalism is framed by a slightly curled hair. The Neapolitan school of the eighteenth century enjoyed a spectacular development, leaving behind the splendors of the previous century and progressing within a fully baroque style and clearly identifiable. It is characterized by a realistic and naturalistic interest.
It is interesting to note the historical value of this work, since the representation of saints and religious proliferated during the seventeenth and eighteenth century due to the split of the church. Beginning in the 1530s, the decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563 included brief and rather inexplicit passages on religious images, which were to have a great impact on the development of Catholic art. Previous Catholic councils had rarely felt the need to pronounce on these matters, unlike the Orthodox, which had often pronounced on specific types of images. The decree confirmed the traditional doctrine that images represented only the person depicted, and that veneration was rendered to the person, not the image, and further commanded that: "all superstition be eliminated ... all lewdness be avoided; so that the figures be neither painted nor adorned with a beauty that incites to lust ... let nothing be seen that is disorderly, or improperly or confusedly arranged, nothing that is profane, nothing unseemly, for holiness is proper to the house of God. And that these things may be more faithfully observed, the holy Synod ordains that no one be permitted to place, or cause to be placed, any unusual image, in any place, or church, whatever the exemption may be, unless such image has been approved by the bishop..."