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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Apotheosis of Hercules, with The Four Seasons ca. 1700 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Apotheosis of Hercules, and The Four Seasons (detail) ca. 1700 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Assembly of the Gods and the Parcae ca. 1700 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna |
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| Giuseppe Maria Crespi Asembly of the Gods and the Parcae (detail) 1700 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande, Bologna |
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| Giovanni Luigi Valesio Putti on Balustrade 1621 ceiling fresco Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome |
"Frescoed ceilings in galleries and loggias, salons and parlors, became typical of the decoration of aristocratic palaces in Rome at the end of the cinquecento and remained so through the ensuing century. The fresco won favor thanks to its modest cost when compared to precious tapestries and thanks also to its narrative potential. It rendered walls and ceilings eloquent, and it complemented the surrounding architectural elements. ... In a palace's decorative scheme, frescoes played a conservative function: they exalted the family, tied together the sequence of rooms, and provided a colorful frame for all the visual elements that fleetingly graced the spaces beneath, as owners, tastes, and fashions shifted."
– Francesca Cappelletti in Display of Art in the Roman Palace, 1550-1750, edited by Gail Feigenbaum (Getty Research Institute, 2014)
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| Giovanni Lanfranco Council of the Gods 1624-25 ceiling fresco Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Nicola Nasini Jupiter subdues the Giants 1691-92 ceiling fresco Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence |
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| Pietro da Cortona Mythological scene 1642 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pitti, Florence |
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| Pietro da Cortona Mythological scene 1643-44 ceiling fresco Palazzo Pitti, Florence |
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| Gregorio de Ferrari Summer 1687-88 ceiling fresco Palazzo Rosso, Genoa |
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| Giovanni Andrea Carlone Allegory on the life of Man 1691-92 ceiling fresco Palazzo Rosso, Genoa |
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| Louis Dorigny Ballroom ceiling 1695-98 fresco Palazzo Zenobio, Venice |
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| Louis Dorigny Ballroom ceiling (detail) 1695-98 fresco Palazzo Zenobio, Venice |
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| Louis Dorigny Ballroom ceiling (detail) 1695-98 fresco Palazzo Zenobio, Venice |
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| Louis Dorigny Corridor ceiling (detail) 1695-98 frescoPalazzo Zenobio, Venice |