ABSTRACT
The Neapolitan revolt against Castile began on 7 July 1647 in the Market Square of Naples, after a dispute between the fruit vendors of the city and the Spanish customs office. Masaniello became the leader of the revolt against the Spanish government and, although he was killed less than ten days later, his name and news of the revolt spread across Europe for years, even after Naples’ return to Spanish rule in April 1648. 1 A few years later, Domenico Gargiulo (1609–1675), otherwise known as Micco Spadaro, painted one of the most well-known images of the revolt, The revolt of Masaniello in 1647. 2 The figure of Masaniello, astride a horse and red-capped, and the violence of the scene have dominated interpretations of this painting. Spadaro’s depiction of the revolt contrasts sharply with another painting of the Market Square by him, but which has attracted less scholarly attention (Plate 5). 3 This painting is bustling, not with a murderous crowd, but, instead, with the activity of buying and selling in the main square of one of the most populous and popular neighbourhoods in seventeenth-century Naples. It reminds us that fruit vendors protesting the raising of taxes and their customers were at the centre of this conflict.
