Update December 2023
A new sculpture enriches the Jago Museum a few months after the inauguration: it is the Narcissus, completed by Jago and exhibited at the museum in December 2023 and which has already been seen by thousands of visitors. In our opinion, it is a truly remarkable work, composed of two juxtaposed statues representing Narcissus and his reflection in the water which however has female features. We illustrate it with some images:
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Dear friends, there is another novelty in Naples: the Jago Museum was inaugurated on 20 May 2023, which brings together a fine selection of works by the artist from Frosinone, now permanently established in Naples, in the Sanità district. The seat of the museum is in the church of Sant'Aspreno ai Crociferi, built in 1633 and dedicated to Sant'Aspreno, the first bishop of Naples (it seems that the people attributed to him the ability to cure headaches, in fact from his name derives the word aspirin). The religious complex, damaged by the rainwater flowing along the Sanità valley, was rebuilt in 1760 by the architects Bartolomeo and Luca Vecchione, collaborators of the famous Luigi Vanvitelli. The church, after about forty years of closure and abandonment, has reopened to the public with the creation of a contemporary art exhibition by the sculptor Jago. The management of the museum is entrusted to the La Paranza Cooperative, the well-deserving structure, which we have already talked about in the post dedicated to Sanità, which has done and continues to do so much for the enhancement of the neighborhood. The cooperative has become famous for the reopening of the Catacombs of San Gennaro and San Gaudioso and the related guided tours, conducted by a large group of trained young people, all set up and coordinated by the parish priest Antonio Loffredo and supported by a large group of sponsors.
As for the artist Jago, there is a beautiful website that describes his works and the numerous exhibitions in which he has been the protagonist: https://jago.art/it/ . For our part, we were happy with the possibility of accessing this structure by chair (La Paranza has always been very attentive to our needs), so we just have to go on to illustrate the works we have seen:
The statue seen in the next two photos is the scale model of the David that Jago will sculpt when he finds the right block of marble (presumably weighing around thirty tons, for a statue the same size as Michelangelo's David).
An addendum to Sant'Aspreno, included in the same ticket, is the visit to San Severo Fuori Le Mura, where, in the Cappella dei Bianchi, one can admire perhaps the most famous work by Jago, the Veiled Son:
As a reminder of our post from 2021, here are two images of the sculpture displayed in Piazza Plebiscito to celebrate the recovery after COVID:
And we close the post with these photos taken in the Rione Sanità to give a vague idea of the celebrations for the third Napoli championship; and if you are not a Napoli fan, enter this famous pastry shop to taste the famous Fiocco di Neve (Snow Flake):
