mediocre. Once his sponsor \v;is sjone, Calenacci 

 apparently did not have sutiicieni ])restit!;c to assert 

 himself at the mint. His signature disappears from 

 the medals early in IS.'if) to reappciir only sporadically 

 in 1837. In the same manner, the signatures of 

 Carricllo or d".\ndrea are accompanied from that 

 point on only by the name of the new director of the 

 mint, Baron Francesco Ciccarclli. and, after a few 

 years, even this procedure was not regularly followed. 



Regrettably we have very little information about 

 Francesco d'Andrea, one of Rega's very able assist- 

 ants. His name was mentioned in connection with 

 Rcga as early as 1809, when Rosmina Clolucci -"^ 

 identified him as the proljable engraver of the medal 

 commemorating the founcUng of Miu-at Square in 

 Naples.-'" The height of his career, which we can 

 deduce from his signed medals, embraces a period of 

 a[)proxiniately two decades, from the early twenties 

 to the late thirties, with its peak achieved during 

 the reign of Francis I, 1825-1830. The warm in- 

 terpretation of Francis' portrait (fig. 76), which 

 carries d'.Andrea's signature when the portrait appears 

 on some of the medals,-" was apparently the selection 

 for the obverse of the entire gold (fig. 75), silver, 

 and co[)[)er coinage of this king. 



Confined to engraving obverses, according to the 

 tradition of the Neapolitan mint, d'Andrea worked 

 on few reverses. Also, he apparently did not have 

 any special aptitude for compositions. A [)remium 

 medal from 1826 (fig. 78), representing an allegorical 

 group on the reverse, confirms this supposition. 

 His artistic qualities, sensitivity and subtle treatment 

 of relief, can be traced only vagvicly in this composition. 



The portrait of young King Ferdinand H and of 

 Queen Maria Theresa on their wedding medal of 

 1837 (fig. 86), a later work of d'Andrea, was highly 

 praised because the artist had to create the portrait 

 from memory and imagination. The same phnn]i 

 features of somewhat Neronian cast can be compared 

 to a similar portrait by another artist u.scd on the 

 largest denominations of the gold, silver, and copper 

 coinage between 1839 and 1851 (fig. 87). 



This work leads us into one of the most intricate and 

 puzzling series of portrait coins in the Neapolitan 

 mintage. During the 29 years of his reign, Ferdinand 

 H, who never posed for a coin, had a variety of por- 

 traits on his coinage. With the exception of the 

 first, young, beardless head (fig. 82), designed by 

 Rega during the lattcr"s final years at the mint and 

 used in a single version on the coinage from 1831 to 

 1839, we are completely in the dark as to whom to 



Fig. 86. — Naples, Ferdi.n.^.nd II .a.nu M.aria Theresia, 



obverse of wedding medal, 1837 -'- 



(Photo from Ricciardi) 



ascribe the later p(;rtraits. Since the archives have 

 not disclosed any precise documentation,-" our desig- 

 nations are purely conjectural, obtained through 

 personal interpretation of the stylistic characteristics 

 of the various engravers. 



The guiding hand of a master was lost after the 

 death of Rega, and judging from the medals of that 

 period, Mncenzo Catenacci, Rega's successor, ap- 

 parently was unable to assert himself effectively. 

 Studying the portrait of the king after 1833, the year 

 of Rega's death, one suspects that each artist was on 

 his own in creating and interpreting the likeness 



209 Coi.iicci, BC.V.V (1942), pp. 36-45. 



-1" Ricciardi, medal 81. 



2" Ibid., incdab 133, 146, 151. 



212 Ibid., medal 168. 



2>' An cxeerpt from a letter (Naples, November 3, 1958) 

 from Mr. Giascppc De Falco, a well-known e.xpert in the 

 Neapolitan series, may serve to confirm this: 



As I mentioned in my previous letter, becau.sc of my 

 limited knowledge on the subject, I wanted to approach 



Miss Eugenia Majorana, the late Mr. Cagiati"s daughter, 

 who in addition to being an undisputed authority in the 

 field of the coinage of southern Italy is, for professional 

 reasons, in contact with all the collectors and students of 

 modern .Neapolitan coins. Yesterday I was able to see my 

 good friend, to whom I had already communicated your 

 request some time ago. Unfortunately she could not tell 

 me more than you would know already. Nobody 

 up to now has done any systematic research in the fascicles 

 of the last fifty years of the Bourbon mint in Naples. 



40 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE .MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



