Frescoes in the Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome (1621)
by GUERCINO

The Casino dell'Aurora is the only portion spared from nineteenth-century demolition of the Villa Ludovisi (later Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi) in Rome. Originally the Casino, erected around 1570 and enlarged in the nineteenth century, was a three-story structure on a cruciform ground plan. During the pontificate of Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi the villa and its casino were used mainly for official functions such as dinners for the college of cardinals. The Casino was decorated by paintings on the ground floor and the second floor in the seventeenth century.

The ceiling of the central room on the ground floor was painted by Guercino depicting Aurora on Her Triumphal Chariot. This composition was a deliberate response to Guido Reni's Aurora in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome. Guercino's coworker was Agostino Tassi who was responsible for the architecture (quadratura) painted in fresco technique. (Guercino painted in tempera instead of fresco.)

In the Stanza del Caminetto, a room adjacent to the central room, the centre of the ceiling shows a wreath of putti, the documented work by Antonio Circignani, called il Pomarancio (1560-1620). It is framed by four landscape pictures painted by Paul Bril, Giovanni Battista Viola, Domenichino, and Guercino. These were produced in a kind of competition between the four painters.

The ceiling painting in the former library on the ground floor, painted by Giovanni Luigi Valesio, depicts crowds of putti with intertwining bands whose isolated letters produce Cardinal Ludovisi's name and title.

The ceiling painting in the Sala della Fama, the central hall on the second floor, is entirely allegorical. The central picture is designed as a fictive opening with only a few figures. In the centre hovers the personification of Fame in billowing robes, holding in her outstretched hands an extremely long trumpet and an olive branch as a symbol of peace. In the lower part of the picture space personifications of Honour (Honos) and Virtue (Virtus) are seated on a dark gray cloud.

A tiny and very low room on the second floor, a space that the owner Ludovico Ludovisi used as a "studiolo," contains the only wall painting by Caravaggio.

In its combination of heraldic and allegorical elements, the pictorial program in the Casino dell'Aurora anticipates the pictorial idiom later perfected by Pietro da Cortona in the Palazzo Barberini.

Preview Picture Data File Info Comment
View of the Sala dell'Aurora
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1100*1337
True Color
215 Kb



Ceiling painting
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1200*902
True Color
224 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1137*900
True Color
216 Kb



Aurora
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

984*880
True Color
162 Kb



Aurora
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1171*768
True Color
185 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1100*1345
True Color
232 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1443*900
True Color
201 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1445*900
True Color
178 Kb



Lunette painting
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1544*900
True Color
166 Kb



Lunette painting
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1510*900
True Color
191 Kb



Ceiling painting
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

834*1500
True Color
210 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1000*1304
True Color
164 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1008*1300
True Color
176 Kb



Ceiling painting (detail)
1621
Tempera
Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome

1200*1219
True Color
276 Kb



Sketch for Aurora
1621
Red chalk on paper, 271 x 248 mm
Courtauld Gallery, London

944*850
True Color
113 Kb




Paintings by GUERCINO
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Frescoes in the Casino dell'Aurora