Cardinal Farnese must have
possessed a keen sense of
humor, if not irony, for the
dining room is styled as a
Stanza della Penitenza, Room
of Penance, with frescoes
by Bertoia depicting hermits
and the virtues of thrift and a
motto proclaiming or rather
warning, "Don't spend a day
without working, eating the
bread which is offered to you."
On a more serious note, the
notion of penance was very
much under discussion in the
Church at the time; there was
tension, during the Counter
Reformation, between the
Renaissance exaltation of
nature and art, and the practice
of asceticism. In a sense,
the decoration of this room
heralds thematically the end
of the Renaissance, the very
age of which it is the pinnacle.
It fell also to Bertoia to
decorate yet another room
stern in theme: the Room
of Judgments, of which the
centerpiece of the vaulted
ceiling is a charming fresco of
The Judgment of Solomon,
HYLAND
...embodiments
of faith with
a largesse not
seen since
Lorenzo di
Medici.
