CORTONA, Pietro da
(b. 1596, Cortona, d. 1669, Roma)

View of the Stanza della Stufa

1637-41
Fresco
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

The picture shows a view of the Stanza della Stufa with the Age of Iron (left) and the Age of Gold and Age of Silver (right).

Of the numerous apartments in the Palazzo Pitti, two suites of rooms stand out because of their decoration, function and size. These took their present form under Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici (1610-1670), and for the most part they were spared later encroachments owing to their high-quality frescoes. These are the reception rooms in the left (north) wing used by Ferdinando II. The rooms on the cooler ground floor, directly connected with the Boboli Gardens by way of a loggia and a terrace, served him as a summer apartment (Appartamento d'Estate); his winter quarters (Appartamento d'Inverno), reached by way of a large staircase and capable of being heated, lie directly above these on the piano nobile.

In the winter quarters Pietro da Cortona decorated the Stanza della Stufa, and the Rooms of the Planets (Sala di Venere; Sala di Giove; Sala di Marte; Sala di Apollo) between 1637 and 1661.

The Stanza della Stufa is a smaller room on the piano nobile that was one of the grand duke's private chambers. It took its name from its heated floor ("stufa" means heater). Cortona painted here the Age of Gold and the Age of Silver on the north wall in 1637. The Age of Bronze and Age of Iron were realized only later in 1641. The iconographic concept is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses.