Domenico Guidi in Padula: a rediscovered 'Annunciation'

The article presents two marble busts in the Chartreuse of San Lorenzo in Padula, near Salerno. These works, which represent the Virgin and the Announcing Angel, are nowadays ascribed to an unknown artist called Domenico Lemnico. According to the Neapolitan biographer Bernardo De Dominici, Lemnico was a pupil of Lorenzo Vaccaro as well as a collaborator of Pierre Le Gros and Camillo Rusconi in Rome. In the present study, the author proposes to attribute the Annunciation group to the sculptor Domenico Guidi (1625-1701), nephew of Giuliano Finelli and pupil of Alessandro Algardi. The attribution to Guidi is based on a stylistic analysis and it is also confirmed by the inventories of the workshop in via dell'Armata in Rome. Through the reading of these documents, it is possible to rebuild the history of these two works, which can be finally added to Guidi’s catalogue.