Panico, Gentileschi, and Lanfranco at San Salvatore in Farnese

Abstract

In the upper Lazio north of Viterbo, in the former duchies of Castro and Latera, once fiefs of the Farnese family, is the parish church of San Salvatore in Farnese. The town, from which the famous family takes its name, was ruled at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Mario Farnese (ca. 1527–1619), Duke of Latera, who was the head of a subsidiary branch of the family (the principal branch was headed by Duke Ranuccio Farnese, who resided in Parma and Piacenza). In Mario's time four altars were decorated in San Salvatore with paintings of unusual art-historical interest. Three of the decorations, two by Panico and one by Lanfranco, were recorded by Bellori.¹ Panico's works still exist in the church; Lanfranco's is lost. The fourth work, a St. Michael by Orazio Gentileschi, was not mentioned in the source literature, but it can still be seen in the church today. Only after I published Gentileschi's altarpiece in 1962² did I learn that the records of the diocese of Castro, to which Farnese belonged, had been transferred after Castro's destruction in 1649 to the diocese of Aquapendente. The documents—Visitc Pastorali (reports of episcopal visits to the churches of the diocese, which usually took place once or twice every ten years) that I have been able to study since then furnish precious information about the paintings for San Salvatore.