Las últimas voluntades de José de Ribera | Jusepe de Ribera’s will

Jusepe de Ribera’s unpublished will, drawn up shortly before his death in Naples in 1652, provides valuable insights into his personal, social and financial life. The will, which is accompanied by a later codicil that modifies some of the original provisions, sheds new light on Ribera’s financial situation at the end of his life and highlights his connections with significant Neapolitan churches: Santo Spirito di Palazzo, with which he was associated, like his father-in-law Giovanni Bernardino Azzolino, and Santa Maria del Parto in Mergellina, where he was buried and to which he bequeathed a significant part of his estate. In relation to art, there are notable provisions regarding the sale of an anonymous bronze bust of Philip II, left some time earlier in the painter’s studio by one of his clients, the little-known Milanese Giovanni Battista Novellone, and the payment for The Communion of the Apostles, Ribera’s last great work, painted for the Charterhouse of San Martino in Naples.