Painting before year 1800
Out of context: Reply #56
- Started
- Last post
- 73 Responses
- drake-von-drake-2
In the Villa Farnesina in Rome, there is a beautiful room upstairs (nearly as beautiful as the Raphael Cupid and Psyche cycle in the loggia downstairs) with paintings by Baldassare Peruzzi. It’s called the Hall of Perspectives and it’s fascinating because the columns painted on the wall give you a sense of depth, as though the room is open to the elements. What I find most intriguing, however, is the graffiti on the wall (first photo), made by German soldiers, the feared Landsknecht, after they sacked Rome in 1527 and basically trashed the villa. The graffiti reads: “1528 - why shouldn’t I laugh: the Landsknecht have put the Pope to flight."
What I find most strange is that after the villa was once again taken back by the rightful Chigi heirs and after it was sold to the Farnese in the last half of the 16th century, why no one covered over the graffiti?