I Feneziani e il “caso” Pratola Peligna

In Abruzzo, Liberty style was always considered a prevalently
coastal phenomenon, or one belonging to the major inland
urban centres. In the Region’s internal areas we find
known examples of this artistic/architectural current in L’Aquila
in the single-family cottage type; in Avezzano where
it spread during the reconstruction period after the 1915
earthquake; and in the city of Sulmona. In spite of this prevailing
“geographical distribution,” the small town of Pratola
Peligna is home to a major presence of the stile floreale
with references to the Abruzzese coast, but also to national
and international currents.
The “case” of this flourishing activity is due to two “underrated”
figures on the regional artistic landscape in the
late nineteenth century: the brothers Giovanni and Bernardino
Feneziani. Natives of San Pio delle Camere in the province of L’Aquila,
they were well-known sculptors and decorators active
in the L’Aquila area of Abruzzo between the late nineteenth
century and the first decades of the twentieth.
Trained at the regional capital’s school of arts and trades
as pupils of Teofilo Patini, they began their long career
as church decorators by adopting a neoclassical/
neo-Baroque language mixed with floral decorative elements.
Examples in the vicinity of the city of L’Aquila include
the façade of the church of San Pietro Celestino in
San Pio delle Camere or the interior decoration works for
the small church of Sant’Antonio Abate in Calascio, where
the master was active at the same time. After their experience
in these churches, the two artists turned their efforts
to other towns in the province of L’Aquila at the turn
of the new century. In the Marsica area, we may mention the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Cerchio and, in
Valle Peligna, the churches of Santa Maria della Misericordia
in Pacentro and of San Nicola in Cansano. But the
Feneziani brothers also distinguished themselves in works
involving civil buildings: in the Sala Baiocco room in L’Aquila
where they worked alongside other pupils from the
school of arts and trades in one of that city’s high-society
Liberty-style salons. Multifaceted artists, they were able
to vary their repertoire and absorb the artistic influences
of their time. As the 1920s drew to a close, Giovanni Feneziani
had relocated to Chieti to devote his efforts to the
decorations on the façade of the Chamber of Commerce
building on Corso Marrucino, using Stile Littorio.
Around 1910, Giovanni and Bernardino Feneziani were
summoned to Pratola Peligna to complete the interior decoration
of the newly created Sanctuary of Maria Santissima
della Libera, where Patini, joined by such pupils as Carlo
Patrignani and Amedeo Tedeschi, had already worked. This
brilliant stroke of intuition was the work of the company
run by the Di Loreto brothers, well-known local builders
who were able to establish a close working relationship –
but also a personal one – with the two gifted artists from
L’Aquila. The latter were employed initially in the Sanctuary
and other religious buildings, before devoting their efforts
to the new Liberty façades for the palazzetti of Pratola’s petite
bourgeoisie. This collaboration was made possible by a
fervid local entrepreneurial activity that was to characterize
that town at the turn of the new century, once it had
been freed from the feudal oppression exercised for years
by the Santo Spirito al Morrone abbey. New façades adorned
the main streets, giving the town a new Liberty-style
guise that presents an interesting regional-level case study
of the stile floreale.