The connection between the splendid medal of Mehmed II signed and dated 'Costanzo' 1481 and a small group of extraordinary drawings of male and female figures in Oriental costume at the Louvre, the British Museum, the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, and the Stewart Gardner Museum has long been established and associated with the correct name, Costanzo de Moysis (Andaloro 1980; Raby 1980). Costanzo was a Venetian painter who lived in Ferrara for a number of years, before settling in Naples, a move almost certainly facilitated by the channels opened up by marriage ties between the two courts. He is referred to in a long letter dated August 1485, addressed to Eleonora of Aragon duchess of Ferrara, by Battista Bendidio, the ambassador of the Este dukes at the court of Naples, published in 1891 by Venturi. In the letter, delivered by Costanzo himself, Bendidio informed the duchess that he would be sending a portrait of the young Ferrante, the son of Eleonora and Ercole d'Este who had been raised in Naples at the court of his grandfather, and introduced the painter, Costanzo, who had executed it. Married to a native of Ferrara during his long stay in the city, Costanzo had later settled in Naples and had been sent by King Ferrante to Mehmed II in Constantinople where his work was highly regarded. Lastly, Bendidio asked Eleonora to see that the affairs for which the painter had gone to Ferrara were completed promptly, thus ensuring his speedy return to Naples. Notwithstanding the importance of Costanzo deriving from this information and despite his previously suggested connection with the above-mentioned drawings, the latter are, however, commonly attributed to Gentile Bellini, another artist sent from Venice to Constantinople and author of the celebrated 'Portrait of Mehmed II'.
Meanwhile, in the context of the developments in Naples reconstructed by Ferdinando Bologna in his well-known book of 1977, the Neapolitan painter Francesco Pagano had been playing a leading role in the introduction of a new artistic culture. In 1472 Cardinal Borgia had entrusted him, together with the Emilian artist Paolo da San Leocadio, with the fresco decoration of the cappella maggiore in the cathedral of Valencia, of which he was archbishop and which some years earlier had been destroyed by fire. After this noteworthy project, which kept both artists occupied for a decade, Francesco Pagano, on his return to Naples, is thought to have painted the important Sant'Omobono polyptych, or 'polittico dei sarti', now at Capodimonte. This coincided with the execution of another fundamental work of Neapolitan painting, the extraordinary polyptych painted by the anonymous 'Maestro di San Severino' formerly in the church of SS. Severino e Sossio and now also at Capodimonte. The research presented in the present study, however, reveals a quite different scenario, supported in part by the discovery, about a decade ago, of some of those Valencian frescoes beneath a 17th-century renovation. On the basis of a document recently found by others in the Majorca archive, Pagano, already active in 1458, was a painter of an earlier generation. It is therefore hard to explain his contribution in the Valencia commission, which reveals the prevailing style of his fellow artist, a painter who had trained under Cossa. There is also no hard evidence to support his return to Naples. Furthermore, the above-mentioned drawings of Oriental figures undoubtedly have stylistic similarities not only with the 'polittico dei sarti' and other works usually attributed to Pagano, but also with a fundamental precedent, which the present author believes to be by the same hand, that is, that very polyptych for the church of SS. Severino e Sossio with which Costanzo established himself in Naples at the beginning of the 1470s.
Another important painter in Naples at that time was the Florentine Polito (Ippolito) del Donzello, further stimulated in his cultural process by Costanzo yet unfortunately obscured by the rapid destruction of the new residences of Alfonso duke of Calabria, Villa La Duchesca and Poggioreale, where his presence is documented by the sources. Polito is Longhi's 'Maestro del 1487', a very distinct figure from his brother Pietro, as is well demonstrated by the small group of paintings recorded under his name in the Officina ferrarese. Establishing himself in Naples in the wake of the entirely Florentine work on the Piccolomini chapel in Monteoliveto, Polito returned to Florence to execute the extraordinary panel with 'The departure of the Argonauts' for the Albizzi-Tornabuoni wedding decorations which bear that date, and which were consequently imbued with an added figurative creativity. When summoned back to Naples, he returned with his less gifted brother Pietro to take on the decoration of Poggioreale and start the frescoes in the chapel of Paolo Tolosa in Monteoliveto.