The frescoes in this room stage another myth inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the one with Cephalus and Procris as protagonists, whose love story, because of goddess Aurora’s interference, was troubled by mutual betrayals.

In the first panel, Cephalus rejects the flattery of goddess Aurora, who, angrily plants the seed of doubt in him about his wife Procris’ faithfulness, urging him to test her.

In the second scene, young Cephalus, with Aurora’s help, presents himself to Procris in the guise of a rich, bearded man, offering her a chest full of treasures. Procris, who could not resist the temptation, fell into the trap hatched by the goddess.
The young woman managed to make up for her betrayal of Cephalus who, in the meantime, bitter and disappointed, had accepted Aurora’s offer of love. As a sign of peace, Procris gifted him a dog named Laelaps, as well as a javelin with a golden tip, as precise as it was deadly.

The epilogue shows the young man’s despair when he discovers that he has accidentally killed his wife who, out of jealousy, had secretly followed him during a hunt.

Procris, in fact, hearing Cephalus call out an “aura”, a breeze, believed that he was invoking Aurora, and uttered a painted groan. Cephalus heard the noise and, mistaking it for a prey, threw his javelin, thus striking his own wife. Realizing what had happened, he finally, desperately threw himself on Procris, pierced by her own gift to him.

Of great interest are the two female allegorical figures, displayed between the double columns. A direct comparison between the frescoes and the prints produced in 1605 by Tuscan engraver Raffaello Schiaminossi shows that the figures are almost overlapping to the Allegory of Vigilance and the Allegory of Wisdom.

 
Another important element of the decoration, though compromised by the poor state of conservation, is the scene portraying the iconography of Ecce Homo, located on the overdoor which offered access to the villa’s external porch; the theme of Christ being exposed to a crowd is also present in other famous villa contexts, such as the Palladian Villa Emo in Fanzolo di Vedelago, where Giambattista Zelotti created an intriguing connection with the pagan painting cycle found inside the room. This is exactly what happens the Cephalus and Procris Room as well, symbolizing an example of virtue placed in antithesis with vices and mistakes of the ancients, but also as a statement of Christian contents prefigured in allegorical form by classical myths. (Barbara Maria Savy, Sara Danese | trad. Anna Dal Pont, Sarah Ferrari)