The installation Una Nuvola Come Tappeto welcomes visitors starting from the Royal Chapel and consists of 21 Catholic kneelers, wooden liturgical furnishings arranged along the entire exhibition path as the “common thread” of the exhibition. Made in the style of a kneeler present in the Naples Cathedral, they are entirely covered with colorful fabrics of Muslim prayer rugs. The title of the work is taken from Erri De Luca’s text, which translates verse 39 of Psalm 105 from Hebrew, «where God is sung as he guides the Jews in the desert». This work unites the three monotheistic religions in a single piece, a single object belonging to religious tradition, arriving today for the first time in Italy, having previously been presented at the Kunstmuseum Lucerne in 2019. In the Sacristy, at the center of the room, the second work titled Planeta (220 x 180(x2) cm) is displayed. Made with yellow-gold Kevlar fabric, obtained from a bulletproof vest, the work is composed of over one hundred pieces sewn together, defining an elliptical shape with an explicit reference to the liturgical vestment of a priestly planeta. Gold reappears in the work of the halos on the maps that the artist defines as «ecological fields (eco-field) of the soul», the result of research on the connection between earth and sky, between real and divine. The real proportion is provided by the reduction scales of the geographical maps used as the work’s support, while the divine proportion is provided by the reduction scales established by the artist, from historical artworks chosen for the selected maps. The artist reproduces only the halos of the figures represented in the ancient works on the maps, creating circles using the gold leaf technique like the originals, superimposing them on the geographical maps. Thus, the protagonists of Giulia Piscitelli’s works are represented in the absence of their bodies, in their golden condition. Moreover, the position of the golden circles could resemble military attack positions, or, conversely, a landscape full of resources yet to be explored. The halo is an iconographic element used since ancient times, and not only in Christian history, as demonstrated by the example from the city of Palmyra in Syria, with the three deities Baalshamin, Aglibol, and Malakbel. The exhibition path concludes with the work titled Naso (1997-2024), exhibited for the very first time: a “tribute to San Gennaro” in the place dedicated to him. A nose made of gilded plaster that reveals an ancient legend and, at the same time, depicts the artist’s own nose in a modeled and enlarged version, derived from a self-portrait made after a painful accident, a kind of ex-voto dedicated to the Patron Saint. The ancient legend connected to the marble bust of San Gennaro, preserved in the Capuchin convent of Pozzuoli, narrates an act of vandalism by Saracen corsairs who, with a scimitar blow, cut off its nose. The faithful ordered various sculptors to create a new nose, but none of those proposed managed to attach to the mutilated face. Meanwhile, numerous fishermen repeatedly found a strangely shaped piece of marble in their nets, which, mistaken for a simple stone, was thrown back into the sea. It was one of them who recognized the shape of a nose in that stone and brought it to the church where, according to legend, the stone flew from the fisherman’s hands to return to its original place. «Suspended between disenchantment and the instinct for renewal, between sacred and vulgar, between consumption and preservation, Giulia Piscitelli’s works shake our spectator’s laziness: they remind us of the blind persistence of things and the illusion of duration. It is the old paradox of art: it teaches us to escape and explains that escaping is in any case impossible», are the words of art critic Stefano Chiodi, from the text in the exhibition catalog. Una Nuvola Come Tappeto by Giulia Piscitelli at the Museum of the Treasure of San Gennaro in Naples will be open to the public until Saturday, January 25, 2025, and can be visited during the museum’s opening hours (the museum ticket price includes exhibition admission).