GUALTIERO PADOVANO
(b. ca. 1510, Padova, d. 1552, Padova)

View of the Hall of the Gods

1550-52
Fresco
Villa Godi Malinverni, Lonedo di Lugo Vicentino

Girolamo Godi, organizer of a Vicenzan literary salon and friend of Pietro Bembo and Alvise Cornaro, engaged Gualtiero around 1550 to decorate the villa. In addition to the loggia, the decoration of four rooms in the right wing of the villa can be ascribed to Gualtiero: the Hall of the Gods or the Putto, the Hall of the Triumphs, the Hall of the Caesars, and the Hall of the Sacrifices. Gualtiero's sudden death in 1552 prevented him from completing the work which was taken over by Battista Zelotti and Battista del Moro, who created the frescoes in the other rooms.

Gualtiero worked with Lambert Sustris at the Villa dei Vescovi in Luvigliano in 1542-43, at the Villa Godi he revived compositional and decorative solutions that had already been tried out in that context. The Hall of the Gods was the first to be completed and the decoration shows striking similarities to the Luvigliano prototype. The ionic columns support architraves decorated with friezes inhabited by mythological deities. Remarkable is the presence of a child, who is seated in an illusory window that opens onto an idyllic landscape.




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