GIOVANNI da NOLA. — G. Marigliano or Meriliano or Meriliano, sculptor, b. at Nola ca. 1488, d. at Naples in 1558, carried out his activity there. In 1508 he was working with the Lombard Pietro Belverte on some wood carvings, according to the account of Summonte, and, together with T. Malvito, executed in the same year the doors of the Ospizio dell’Annunziata.
His training is to be sought in the vital artistic milieu of the Aragonese capital, where Tuscan, Roman, and Michelangelesque experiences converged.
Ca. 1524 G. da N. sculpted the tomb of the viceroy don Ramón de Cardona, later sent to Bellpuig in Catalonia; but before those years, according to the information supplied by Summonte, he was to sculpt the life-size wooden Nativity scene of S. Maria del Parto and a Crucifix, now lost, in the church of Monteoliveto. The high altar of S. Lorenzo, of which three bas-reliefs and four statues remain, dates from 1528; two years later came the tomb of Antonia Gaudino, who died on 30 December 1530, in S. Chiara. The tomb of Guido Fieramosca at Montecassino dated from 1535; it was lost with the destruction of the Abbey.
Many other notable works remain, among which may be mentioned a s. Dorotea in S. Agnollo, the altar of the Madonna della Neve in S. Domenico, the Sanseverino tomb in the church of SS. Severino e Sossio, and that of the viceroy don Pietro di Toledo in S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli (ca. 1540–46), as well as a bas-relief depicting the Deposition in S. Maria delle Grazie at Caponapoli. The part attributable to him in the Caracciolo di Vico chapel, in S. Giovanni a Carbonara, is instead controversial. The chapel was begun in 1516 by the Spanish sculptor Pietro de la Plata and subsequently continued by G. da N. and his pupils Annibale Caccavello and Girolamo d’Auria.
G. da N.’s influence in Naples and throughout the whole of southern Italy, as far as Calabria, was considerable. A beautiful Madonna della Neve in the church of S. Leoluca at Vibo Valentia displays characteristics akin to his art.