The image of the Turkish Slave in a peripheral area of the Pontifical States: the case of the cycle of Villa Buonaccorsi in Potenza Picena

In 1750 a member of the Knights of Malta from the Buonaccorsi family of Macerata, most likely Giambattista Buonaccorsi, hired the painter Benedetto Biancolini to decorate a loggia within the family’s suburban villa in Monte Santo (now Potenza Picena). In celebration of the commissioner’s victories against the Turks in the Mediterranean, the painter decorated the loggia’s vault with scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso. He also painted two lunettes with an image of Turkish prisoners chained and surrounded by Ottoman flags and weapons, trophies captured from the Muslims in the corsair war. Previously overlooked by art historians, this iconographic cycle can now be understood in all its historical significance, thanks to archival research that has identified the artist, the likely commissioner, and the context to which it refers.