The Seventeenth Century in Villa Farnesina

The exhibition The Seventeenth Century in Villa Farnesina presented to the public an extraordinary discovery: previously unknown frescoes that have re-emerged in the so-called Farnese sitting room of the villa, hidden beneath a nineteenth-century vault. This decorative section from the Farnese period features a sky with flying cherubs surrounding the Farnese coat of arms at the center of the vault, two cherubs on a blue background in the pendentives, and a landscape in autumn tones adorning the only visible lunette.

The exhibition — held under the patronage of the Friends of the Academy of the Lincei Association, in collaboration with the École française de Rome as part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of its founding, and with the Colosseum Archaeological Park — made it possible to further examine the influence of Raphael’s style in seventeenth-century Rome. To this end, a selection of works was important paintings inspired by or reproducing the frescoes of Raphael and his collaborators were exhibited for the first time at the Farnesina: two reworkings of the pendentives painted by Giulio Romano, attributed to Antonio Carracci; the Galatea by Pietro da Cortona, Galatea by Andrea Sacchi, and the seventeenth-century copy of Galatea from the École française de Rome.

With the aid of digital technologies and a first photographic campaign curated by Luigi Spina, the seventeenth-century frescoes were also presented to the public.