Giacomo Serpotta

His skill and facility with stucco sculpture appears to have arisen without mentorship or direct exposures to the mainstream of Italian Baroque.

The Serpotta family, including his brother Giuseppe (1653–1719) and his son Procopio (1679–1755), was immensely prolific in Palermo, decorating churches and oratories.

In style, he has a florid elegance that often recalls Antonio Raggi, a slightly older artist who was adept at stucco decoration and active in Rome.

For example, decorating the Oratory of San Lorenzo (1690/98–1706) with such a profusion of statuary, teeming with putti, that the walls appear to quiver with the movement of a crowd.

His work at the oratory of the Compagna della Carità di San Bartolomeo degli Incurabili in Palermo has been lost.

Gesso Charity , Oratorio di San Lorenzo, Palermo
Santa Cita oratory, note the dioramas in the lower register and proliferation of figures and cherubs above
Center diorama depicting (presumably) St Dominic pleading to the Virgin to aid the Christians at the Battle of Lepanto