ZELOTTI, Giovanni Battista
(b. 1526, Verona, d. 1578, Mantova)

Frescoes in the Hall of the Arts (detail)

1561-65
Fresco
Villa Godi Malinverni, Lonedo di Lugo Vicentino

The Hall of the Arts owes its name to the allegorical figures that sit high above the faux niches and windows, and flank busts of philosophers and emperors. We can identify among them the figures of Poetry with a large book, paired with Architecture with a compass. The Muses tower over fallen prisoners portrayed in their painstaking anatomical detail.