The Palazzo Sampieri frescoes are a set of paintings by Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci in the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna. They form the last surviving collection of works by the three artists. Hercules Guided by Virtue is the ceiling…
St. Michael Vanquishing Satan is created by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael. The painting was commissioned by Pope Leo X. In the painting, the archangel Michael standing on top of Satan's back with his right foot, while holding a spear in…
The painting is an entirely autograph work by Guido Reni. It is a work of exceptional importance not only on account of its composition, which being especially pleasing, was immediately well received, but also for the extraordinarily high quality of…
This work features two naked bodies in basically sideways motion, and its subject is the race between the man-resisting girl Atalanta and her ardent suitor, Hippomenes; he has thrown a golden apple to distract her, and she is stooping to pick it up.…
The Pala della Peste (Altarpiece of the Bubonic Plague) depicts the Madonna and Child in Glory with the Patron Saints of Bologna: Petronius, Francis, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Proculus of Bologna, and Florian.
The Separation of Night from Day happens in the story of the Creation. A winged celestial being or spirit, who has variously been called Dawn or Twilight, separates two figures with two wands. Day, a scantily clad young man, moves swiftly towards the…
The Aurora is a large Baroque ceiling fresco painted in 1614 by Guido Reni for the Casino, or garden house, adjacent to the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, in Rome. The casino and the fresco were commissioned by the Cardinal Scipione Borghese.…
According to Christian tradition, after meeting Christ, Mary Magdalene regretted her former sinful ways. The claims that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute leading a promiscuous way of life before meeting Jesus and repenting of her sinful ways, are…
Guido Reni uses one of his most iconic compositions in this work. Sebastian was a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom for his Christian faith under the reign of Diocletian and Maximian at the end of the third century. He became a patron saint of the…
“The Archangel Michael” is one of Guido’s most famous works painted in his second manner when he was strongly under Raphael’s influence. The single devotional figures of the Archangel Michael usually depict him as combining the characters of captain…