Una pala di Bernardo Castello a Piano di Sorrento

The article presents an unpublished altarpiece by Bernardo Castello housed in the canon’s residence of the Basilica of San Michele Arcangelo in Piano di Sorrento, a Virgin of Souls in Purgatory with Saints Charles Borromeo, Margaret of Antioch and Michael the Archangel. While the attribution to Castello, one of the protagonists of Ligurian art of the decades around 1600, is based on precise comparisons with contemporary works and a preparatory drawing, a reading of pastoral visits makes it possible to reconstruct the painting’s original context and date its execution to the mid-1610s. The canvas can thus be included in the already substantial group of works by non-local artists present since early times in the small town on the Sorrento coast, especially associated with the patronage of the local entrepreneurial class.