Hercules Guided by Virtue

Hercules Guided by Virtue

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 fresco of the Palazzo Sampieri. The scheme was commissioned by Astorre Sampieri, young abbot of Santa Lucia di Roffeno, member of a powerful family which had been promoted to senatorial rank in 1590.He had arrived back in the city shortly before commissioning the work from the three artists, already noted for their Life of Aeneas and Lives of Jason and Medea frescoes at the Palazzo Fava and their Scenes from the Foundation of Rome frescoes at the Palazzo Magnani,both in Bologna. Those schemes were all friezes, but at the Palazzo Sampieri they planned three large ceiling scenes and three large scenes over fireplaces in each room.The reasons for this choice are unknown - Astore Sampieri may have wanted something different from the norm or the low rooms may simply not have lent themselves to friezes.

None of the three artists had previous experience of the "sottinsù" (upside-down) technique the scheme would require, but Annibale and Agostino had frequently seen and admired examples of it in palazzi and churches in Venice by artists such as Veronese and Tintoretto, artists personally known to Agostino.

Annibale Carracci

Cordellier, Dominique. “Guido Reni’s ‘Separation of Day and Night.’” The Burlington Magazine 129, no. 1007 (1987): 81–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/882779.

Eugenio Riccomini, L'Ercole trionfante. I tre Carracci a Casa Sampieri, Bologna, 2006.

Wikimedia Commons contributors, "File:Annibale Carracci Ercole guidato dalla Virtù, Palazzo Sampieri Bologna.png," Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Annibale_Carracci_Ercole_guidato_dalla_Virt%C3%B9,_Palazzo_Sampieri_Bologna.png&oldid=573951464 (accessed December 10, 2021).

1593-94

Jenny Chen

Fresco

Palazzo Sampieri, Bologna