THE ROOM OF APOLLO AND DAPHNE

The myth to which this room is dedicated is one of most famous ancient themes, conveyed by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.

The climax of the story is depicted on one of the room’s walls: after mocking Cupid’s archery prowess, Apollo fell victim to his revenge. The god of Love struck him with a golden arrow, sparking an irresistible desire in him for the nymph Daphne, who, was instead pierced by a lead arrowhead, which had the power to cause feelings of rejection. As soon as Apollo saw the young woman, daughter of the river god Peneus, he fell madly in love with her.

Daphne began to flee, pursued by the god of the Arts, who was desperate to persuade her to stop, enumerating all her powers to her. The beautiful nymph, exhausted, eventually reached the river Peneus and, there, she invoked her father’s aid: her wish was granted and, before she could be reached by Apollo, she was turned into a laurel tree. A regretful Apollo chose to elevate the laurel as a plant sacred to him, and he adorned his hair, zither, and quiver with it. Poets, champions, and military leaders, from that day on, have been crowned with laurel leaves.

The anonymous artist is clearly the same hand who frescoed the Room of Mercury and Argus and draws, in this case as well, from a repertoire of mythological subjects obtained from prints and book illustrations, set within large landscapes.

On the opposite wall it is possible to view a bucolic landscape, inhabited by classical ruins, inside which a river flows, crossed by a bridge. A fisherman sitting on the shore seems to observe the mountains and a village in the distance while, in the foreground, a zither player catches the eyes of the guests entering the room.

The unknown artist has faithfully recaptured here the landscape found in a valuable etching, dated back to around 1550-1560 by the Verona native painter Battista del Moro, depicting a Respite during the flight to Egypt.

Looking out of the fictive door painted on the southern wall is an old maid: this is a motif present in villa decoration as far back as Ancient Rome, and recurring in the following tradition as well, according to a taste for true trompe-l’oeil. A famous sixteenth-century example is found in the frescoes by Paolo Veronese in Villa Barbaro, in Maser (TV).

The illusionistic architecture of the room is punctuated by a series of ionic columns, within which festoons full of fruit (apples, pears, grapes, and pomegranates) and flowers are ideally hung, alternated with bows, painted in shades of pink which are well-suited for the dusk light of the depicted scenes. The architrave shows a decorative painted frieze, where masks flank cameos adorned with mythological figures of gods who are known as protectors of the Arts. (Barbara Maria Savy, Sara Danese | trad. Anna Dal Pont, Sarah Ferrari)