Oratorio di San Mercurio, Palermo

The Oratory of San Mercurio (1678–82).

If I understand it correctly, the confraternity of San Mercurio consisted of aristocrats who venerated an ancient image of the Blessed Virgin found in a deserted area outside the city walls. Their mission included aiding the sick at the Grand Hospital.

The ancient church of S. Mercurio with the miracolous image of the Madonna del Deserto or Madonna della Consolazione, as it is called today, still exists in Via S. Mercurio.

 

The attribution of the stuccoes in the Oratory of San Mercurio has been a topic of considerable debate, which was only recently resolved with the discovery of archival documents confirming their authorship by Giacomo Serpotta and his older brother Giuseppe.

These documents—discovered after Donald Garstang published his monumental book Giacomo Serpotta and the Stuccatori of Palermo (London, 1984)—date the execution of the stuccoes to the period between 1678 and 1682. According to Santina Grasso in her study Gli oratori di San Mercurio e del Carminello a Palermo (Leonforte, 2014), this confirmation provides crucial insight into the early collaborative efforts of the Serpotta brothers within the context of Sicilian Baroque art.

Giacomo Serpotta’s first significant commission in Palermo

The decoration of the Oratory of San Mercurio was Giacomo Serpotta’s first significant commission in Palermo, undertaken when he was just 22 years old.

Grasso elaborates that this project marks an early phase in Giacomo's career when his work was closely intertwined with the family workshop and overseen in part by his older brother, Giuseppe Serpotta (1653–1719).

The Brothers Giuseppe and Giacomo

Despite being overshadowed by the widely celebrated genius of Giacomo, Giuseppe’s contributions were likely pivotal in shaping Giacomo’s formative years and early professional development.

Grasso emphasizes that the structure of the Serpotta workshop and the system of commissions during this period suggest a complex dynamic between the two brothers. Giacomo's trajectory during the 1670s and 1680s—and, to some extent, into the early 1690s—was significantly influenced by his collaboration with Giuseppe. While they sometimes undertook projects individually, their joint commissions raise questions about the division of labor. As Grasso notes, the order of their names in contracts, where Giuseppe often preceded Giacomo, or the act of only one brother signing, may not accurately reflect their respective roles. Such details could instead have been dictated by Giuseppe's seniority or practical considerations.

Who Did What?

Determining the exact contributions of each brother to their collaborative works remains challenging. Grasso highlights how this ambiguity is evident in the Oratory of San Mercurio, where the stylistic and technical nuances complicate attributions. The brothers’ shared stylistic foundation, marked by imaginative grotesques inspired by the Gagini school, further blurs the lines of individual authorship. Grasso observes that, in this early period, their decorative repertoire combined innovative grotesques with the prevailing late-Mannerist idioms of 17th-century Sicilian stuccowork, creating a synthesis that continues to captivate scholarly attention.

Despite the various hypotheses and conjectures, it is undoubtedly difficult to explain how the awkward sculptor of the Oratory of San Mercurio—still so similar to his contemporaneous stucco artists that his sculptures are not easily distinguishable from those executed in the same building by the mediocre Antonino Pisano—transformed within a few years into the skilled modeler of Santa Cita, whose distance from his contemporaries had become unmistakably insurmountable.

According to Garstang, “the level of execution is quite low and points to a stuccatore of artisan extraction as the author of this decoration”. (Serpotta, p. 214)

 

 

Putti decoration on the wall.

 

 

 

“To Donald Garstang, with fond memories.”

 

Ceramic Floor Tiles

The majolica-tiled floor of the main hall was created between 1714 and 1715 by Sebastiano Gurrello and Maurizio Vagolotta, based on a design by the priest-architect Giulio Di Pasquale, according to information from the official Palermitan tourist web site.

 

Ceramic floor tiles.

 

Colourful ceramic floor tiles, Oratorio di San Mercurio, Palermo.

 

 

The Serpotta Oratories in Palermo

Oratorio of Santa Cita (1668–1718)

Oratorio of San Lorenzo (1690/98–1706)

Oratorio di San Domenico (1710–17)

Oratorio di Santa Caterina D’Alessandria

Oratorio di San Mercurio (1677–82)

The Serpotta workshop’s art is analyzed by Donald Garstang in Giacomo Serpotta and the Stuccatori of Palermo 1560–1790.

 

 

The Serpotta family

The Serpotta family was a renowned lineage of sculptors and stucco artists (stuccatori) in Sicily, with Giacomo Serpotta as its most illustrious member. Key figures of the Serpotta family include:

• Giacomo Serpotta (1656–1732): The most famous member, celebrated for his innovative Rococo-style stucco work.
• Giuseppe Serpotta (1653–1719): Giacomo’s brother, who collaborated with him in their Palermo-based family studio. The attribution of the stuccoes in the Oratory of San Mercurio has recently been resolved with the discovery of archival documents confirming their authorship by Giacomo Serpotta and his older brother Giuseppe.
• Procopio Serpotta (1679–1755): Giacomo’s son, who upheld the family’s stucco artistry tradition. Procopio inherited Giacomos collection of engravings, designs, and models. He was, according to Donald Garstang, an artist worthy of his father, although he didn't have the “important margin of artistic autonomy which his father maintained in his relations with the architects and painters involved in the decoration of the oratories and churches.”
• Gaspare Serpotta: Giacomo’s father, a skilled artist in his own right.

The Serpotta family often worked together on projects, decorating churches, oratories, and religious buildings across Sicily. Their workshop was especially active in Palermo, where they crafted intricate and distinctive stucco decorations.

 

 

Sources

Santina Grasso, Giovanni Mendola, Cosimo Scordato, Valeria Viola: Gli oratori di San Mercurio e del Carminello a Palermo (Leonforte, 2014), (Project “Gli oratori di Giacomo Serpotta a Palermo”)