Frescoes in the Palazzo Poggi, Bologna (1550-51)
Pellegrino TIBALDI

In his palace in Bologna, Cardinal Giovanni Poggi (1493-1556) had the halls of the piano nobile painted by Niccolò dell'Abate, Prospero Fontana, and others. They painted friezes with landscapes and grotesques, as well as numerous episodes from the Old Testament. In the ground floor, the twenty-three-year-old Pellegrino Tibaldi created the Odysseus frescoes, a major work that he would never again equal.

The Odysseus frescoes adorn the vaults of two rooms. From the entry corridor of the palace one walks first into a large hall (Sala di Ulisse), where the cycle begins. One finds the continuation and conclusion in a smaller room directly adjoining the hall (Stanza di Ulisse). The ceiling articulation and the arrangement of the paintings in both rooms are oriented along the lines of a famous Roman model, Raphael's Logge in the Vatican Palace. The scenes are inserted as 'quadri riportati' (framed paintings that are seen in a normal perspective and painted into a fresco). Between the fields of the painted histories, illusionistic views open onto colonnades that seem to reach up to the heaven. The framings are executed in stucco.

With their various decorative systems, each of the two rooms achieves a wholly individual character, one corresponding to its respective size and position. The ceilings in the Sala di Ulisse and Stanza di Ulisse contain five and four scenes from the Adventures of Odysseus, respectively.

Preview Picture Data Info
View of the ceiling vault
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


The Blinding of Polyphemus (scene 1)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


The Blinding of Polyphemus (detail)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


The Blinding of Polyphemus (detail)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


The Blinding of Polyphemus (detail)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Polyphemus and the Flight of the Greeks (scene 2)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Aelos Gives Odysseus the Bag of Winds (scene 3)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Neptune and the Ship of Odysseus (scene 4)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Odysseus and Circe (scene 5)
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Ignudo
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Ignudo
1550-51
Fresco
Sala di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


View of the ceiling vault
1550-51
Fresco
Stanza di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Theft of the Cattle of Helios (scene 6)
1550-51
Fresco
Stanza di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Shipwreck (scene 7)
1550-51
Fresco
Stanza di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Odysseus and Ino Leucothea (scene 8)
1550-51
Fresco
Stanza di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna


Odysseus at the Court of the Phaeacians (scene 9)
1550-51
Fresco
Stanza di Ulisse, Palazzo Poggi, Bologna



Paintings by Pellegrino Tibaldi
Frescoes in the Palazzo Poggi, Bologna
Various paintings



© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.