Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
ADJUNCT MODULE A: ITALIAN ART
Preferred Title:
Allegory of Divine Providence
Alternate Title:
Triumph of Divine Providence and Barberini Power
Image View:
Detail, one of the flanking figures of Autorità Pontifica flanked by Prudence and Glory
Creator:
Pietro da Cortona (Italian painter, 1596-1669)
Location:
repository: Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (Rome, Lazio, Italy)
Location Note:
Palazzo Barberini, Via delle Quattro Fontane, 13
GPS:
41.903611 12.490278
Date:
1632-1639 (creation)
Cultural Context:
Italian
Style Period:
Baroque
Work Type 1:
fresco (painting)
Classification:
painting
Material:
pigment on plaster
Technique:
fresco painting (technique); grisaille
Measurements:
15 m (width, approx.) x 25 m (length, approx.)
Description:
After he had decorated a small gallery and chapel in the newly built Palazzo Barberini in 1631-1632, Francesco Barberini commissioned him to decorate the vast vault of the palazzo’s Gran Salone, on which Cortona worked for seven years. Cortona’s creation of an illusionistic architectural framework of feigned stucco, which divides the surface into five painted scenes yet connects and relates the scenes and figures, was absolutely new. The room seems open to the sky, and the richly decorated framework strengthens the unity of the illusionistic view. The theme of the fresco is an Allegory of Divine Providence, personified by the activities of Urban VIII. In the center of the vault emblems of the Barberini family were provided with attributes of immortality, and along the cove historical and allegorical scenes illustrate the virtues of the Barberini. (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordart online.com/)
Collection:
Adjunct Module A: Italian Art
Identifier:
7A1-CPD-PB-TDP-17
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.

Allegory of Divine Providence