San Gennaro intercedes with Christ, the Virgin and the Eternal Father for the end of the plague

Signed on the right with the letters LF. Coming from Naples, church of Santa Maria del Pianto, kept since 2002 in Naples, Museum and Real Bosco di Capodimonte. For a long time, plagues and epidemics were considered divine punishments, for which prayer seemed to be the only way out. In this canvas, considered at the top of Giordano's maturity, we observe San Gennaro who intercedes with Christ, the Virgin and the Eternal Father for the end of the plague. In the lower part of the canvas, the scene of the plague victims pouring through the streets of Naples, with its drama and the livid color of the complexions, refers to the frescoes that Mattia Preti, a few years earlier, had painted on the city gates for the cessation of plague of 1656, which had halved, in a few months, the 450,000 inhabitants of the city.