Glorification of Este Patronage

mythological

The picture shows the ceiling decoration in the Salone delle Guardie in the Palazzo Ducale in Sassuolo The Salone was transformed into a bombastic, theatrical glorification of the house of Este by the quadratura painters Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli. Coats of arms, painted fabrics, trophies, and simulated statues against the walls serve as a prelude to the ceiling painting in which Apollo and the nine Muses celebrate the Este as patrons of the various arts, documented in inscriptions accompanying the goddesses.

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About the Artist

Angelo Michele Colonna

1604 – 1687

Italian painter and draughtsman, active also in Spain. He studied and collaborated with Girolamo Curti (1575-1632) and later enjoyed a 25-year collaboration with Agostino Mitelli. A figure painter (figurista) and quadraturista, with Mitelli he emphasized the former role. In 1625, however, Colonna provided both figures (studies, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie) and quadratura for the nave ceiling of S Alessandro, Parma; in 1635-36 he and Mitelli decorated the walls of the Sala Grande, Palazzo Spada, Rome. Only the scenographic decoration of three ground-floor rooms in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1639-41), and the more richly detailed frescoes in the Great Hall of the Palazzo d'Este at Sassuolo, Modena (1646-47), survive out of their complete quadratura interiors. Their finest work in Bologna was the intricate design of the chapel of the Rosary, S Domenico (1654-56). In this period they decorated a chamber in the Palazzo Balbi, Genoa, contributing to the diversity of ceiling decorations in Liguria.

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