On the theory that there is no such thing as too much Gesualdo, I am offering more pictures from my expedition last June into the violent and visionary world of the Prince of Venosa. (See this post at the New Yorker website for the original set.) Giancarlo Vesce took the above picture of the Gesualdo castle in October. The renovation is apparently making rapid progress.
How the painting "Il perdono" looks from the back of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Gesualdo.
Padre Antonio Gambale, of the Capuchin monastery attached to the church. Carlo Gesualdo founded the institution.
More features of the interior of the castle. The last picture, if I'm not mistaken, shows the Prince's private chapel.
At another church in Gesualdo, the Chiesa dell'Addolorata, Domenico Sodano performed the first of Gesualdo's pieces for the anthology Salmi delle compiete. Sodano gave me a copy of his excellent recording Alla corte di Gesualdo, containing vocal and instrumental pieces by Gesualdo and various other composers of his era, including his associate Pomponio Nenna and the mid-sixteenth-century Neapolitan musician and poet Massimo Troiano. The latter was included, I suspect, because he was accused of murdering a fellow musician in Munich, in 1570, and fled the city, never to be heard from again.
Above the altar is a series of paintings by the contemporary artist Kathy Toma, interweaving Biblical elements with motifs reminiscent of the Gesualdo story. Those who understand Italian can read a full explication of the project here.
Outside the castle. I wish I could say that that's Gesualdo's favorite bench, but it seems to date to a later period.
Part of the Castello in Venosa, some eighty miles east of Gesualdo. Although Gesualdo held the title of Prince of Venosa and derived most of his wealth from the principality, he seems to have spent relatively little time there.
The Palazzo d'Avalos in Naples.
"He was at Naples writing letters home...."
