Among the golden Caryatids, protagonists of the architectural setting, are depicted a few hunting scenes. The choice of theme evokes the typical activities carried out in the context of the villa, a place where the owner settled for long periods of time, leading a lifestyle of aristocratic leisure and intellectual otium (idleness), to which also allude the three allegories depicted in the niches: Joy, Recompense, and Intellect.

Once again, the models which the unknown painter refers to for the creation of these allegorical figures are, as already witnessed in the previous room, the ones found inside Attributes of the Soul by Raffaello Schiaminossi, which provide a certain chronological reference, useful to date the frescoes to a time after 1605.

The four hunting scenes in the wall panels find a clear match in the prints by Antonio Tempesta, which were part of a series of Hunting Scenes printed in 1598. One of them shows a group of characters engaged in a bear hunt. Despite the paint loss involving the central portion of the fresco, it is still possible to appreciate the great dynamism with which the painter depicted the hunters, immersed in a wooded landscape rich in naturalistic details.

On the southern elevation, in the foreground, two horsemen are depicted as they strike a leopard with their pikes.

Thanks to this reference it was possible to surmise that the scene frescoed on the northern wall, now unreadable, must have once represented a deer hunting scene; in fact, in the top right of the panel, it is still possible to make out the shape of an umbrella, perfectly corresponding to its positioning in the sixteenth-century print mentioned above.

The overdoor decoration depicts two sacred themes: above the passage leading to the Room of Cephalus and Procris stands a Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptiste, while, on the opposite wall, it is possible to discern, at the sides, St. John The Baptist, with his lamb, and St. Anthony of Padua, with his Franciscan habit and a lily, as well as another figure, more difficult to interpret. On the same wall, below and to the left, is an extensive overpainting, which badly interferes with the Allegory of Intellect, the nearby Caryatid, and the hunting scene. It is an addition which muddles the characters of the hunters and horseback riders by superimposing the view of a villa that, due to its shape, the presence of an oratory on the left-hand side, and the garden’s design, could be referring to the renovations made by the Dondi dall’Orologio family around 1775. (Barbara Maria Savy, Sara Danese | trad. Anna Dal Pont, Sarah Ferrari)