The Immaculate Conception of San Giovanni Battista in Turi

A heavenly vision of seventeenth-century Franciscan art

In the intimate half-light of the Church of San Giovanni Battista in Turi, a silent image continues to speak to the hearts of the faithful and of art lovers alike. It is the Immaculate Conception, a seventeenth-century canvas attributed to Fra Antonio da Conversano, a friar-painter of the vibrant Franciscan artistic milieu, which still preserves the power of a mystical vision suspended between heaven and earth.

The Immaculate Conception is not merely a devotional image, but a theological concept translated into painting. As Mariella Donvito recalls, Mary is not depicted in her role as mother, but in her eternal election: conceived without sin, chosen in the mind of God before time itself. For this reason, the Virgin appears young and radiant, descending from heaven, called to redeem the primordial fault through her purity.

The painting, located in the second chapel on the right of the nave, follows iconography inspired by the Apocalypse: Mary stands upon a slender silver crescent moon, her hands joined in prayer, wrapped in a rose-coloured robe and a wide blue-azure mantle enriched with golden borders. Above her, the Holy Spirit and God the Father seem to welcome her in a cosmic embrace, while around them a harmonious choir of angel musicians animates the heavens.

At the sides of the Virgin, like a symbolic garden, unfolds a refined language of signs: palms, cedars, roses, fountains, closed gates and ideal cities narrate—without words—the virtues of Mary. It is a learned and complex narrative, drawing upon the Song of Songs and biblical tradition, making this Immaculate Conception one of the highest and most sophisticated expressions of seventeenth-century Marian art.

Below, almost concealed by time, emerge traces of the human history of the work. The name of the patron, Giovanni Domenico Gonnelli, engraved in devotion for the salvation of his soul, and the remnants of a worn signature that restore to us the identity of the artist: Fra Antonio da Conversano. Little is known of this painter, but he was able to translate into images the spiritual ideal of his Franciscan family, as also evidenced by a similar Immaculate Conception preserved in Polizzi Generosa, Sicily.

Today this canvas, fragile and marked by time, calls for attention and care. The paint layer is thinning, the canvas is tearing, and its beauty risks slowly fading away. It is a silent yet urgent appeal: safeguarding the Immaculate Conception of San Giovanni means preserving not only a work of art, but a shared memory, a heritage of faith, culture and identity belonging to the entire community.

Credits

Original text: Giovanni Lerede

Photographs: Giovanni Palmisano

Sources

• Mariella Donvito, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in Confraternal Devotion, in Puglian Confraternities in the Early Modern Age, edited by Liana Bertoldi Lenoci, Scena Editore, 1988.

• Benigno F. Perrone, The Convents of the Seraphic Reform of St Nicholas in Puglia (1590–1835), vols. 1 and 3, Congedo Editore, 1982.

• Salvatore Anselmo, Polizzi Generosa, Church of Saint Ursula, www.polizzigenerosa.it.