BALESTRA, Antonio

This romantic scene, a winsome nocturnal Nativity, is one of the many paintings that decorate the walls of the church San Zaccaria.

On the short walls of the main hall, faux frames contain The Killing of Achilles and The Abduction of Helen. Balestra’s unusual skills as a colourist can be appreciated in these scenes.

In The Abduction of Helen, the two protagonists stage a charming minuet, moving toward the boat that awaits them. They are enveloped by the soft light of the sky, traversed by puffy clouds. The stillness of the scene as a whole is enlivened by a gust of wind that reveals the softness of the drapery.

The two protagonists stage a charming minuet, moving toward the boat that awaits them. They are enveloped by the soft light of the sky, traversed by puffy clouds. The stillness of the scene as a whole is enlivened by a gust of wind that reveals the softness of the drapery.

On the short walls of the main hall, faux frames contain The Killing of Achilles and The Abduction of Helen. Balestra’s unusual skills as a colourist can be appreciated in these scenes.

In The Killing of Achilles, the hero lies on the ground, shown in foreshortened view, killed by the arrow that has pierced his vulnerable heel. In the background, the smiling Paris stands behind a sacrificial altar, having just committed the crime, after promising his sister Polygene to the hero. Polygene, unwitting tool and witness to the ambush, is consoled by her mother, Hecuba, wife of Priam, the king of Troy.

The hero lies on the ground, shown in foreshortened view, killed by the arrow that has pierced his vulnerable heel.

Cupid’s ardent chariot burst through the clouds, drawn by majestic, impetuous steeds, headed toward Venus’s beloved island of Cythera, where Cupid, the small but powerful god, will celebrate his triumph over man, who is vanquished by pleasure. On the gilded vehicle, Cupid is about to shoot his dart toward the throng he has subjugated.

Theseus is a legendary Greek hero, king of Athens, and a famous slayer of monsters. Though his father was the king of Athens, Theseus was born and brought up in Troezen. Here his father placed a sword and sandals under a heavy rock and left orders that his child was to follow him to Athens when he was strong enough to lift the rock and bring the tokens hidden underneath.

The the ceiling in the main hall of the villa, unfortunately damaged and repainted in certain areas, has a representation of The Triumph of Love, after Francesco Petrarch’s poem. Cupid’s ardent chariot burst through the clouds, drawn by majestic, impetuous steeds, headed toward Venus’s beloved island of Cythera, where Cupid, the small but powerful god, will celebrate his triumph over man, who is vanquished by pleasure. On the gilded vehicle, Cupid is about to shoot his dart toward the throng he has subjugated.

The composition of the ceiling fresco, particularly the superb quartet of horses, might have made an impression on Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who would return to this scheme on numerous occasions.

The Villa Pompei Carlotti in Illasi (Verona) was rebuilt between 1731 and 1737 according to the design of the owner, Alessandro Pompei, a patrician from Verona and a remarkable intellectual, architect, and virtuoso painter. In 1738, after the reconstruction was completed, the brothers Alberto and Alessandro Pompei asked Antonio Balestra, a renowned Veronese painter and Alessandro’s former teacher, to create frescoes for the vast main hall. The other spaces in the villa were decorated by Balestra’s disciples.

The main hall, a luminous, double-height space that occupies the central portion of the building, is completely covered in faux architectural decoration. The lower portion of the wall surface is measured off by pairs of fluted columns of a composite order, which rest on a tall marmorino skirting board that circles the entire perimeter. The space between each pair of columns contains a depiction of a god, painted to imitate a marble statue. There are twelve in all. On the short walls, faux frames contain The Killing of Achilles and The Abduction of Helen. Above the doors, four ovals enclose monochrome mythological scenes. On the upper portion of the wall, twelve figures of cupids appear between pairs of pilasters.

The vault of the ceiling is covered by The Triumph of Love, illusionistically supported by large, bulging corbels, set within an elaborate trompe l’oeil layout.

The represented saints in this large altarpiece in the church of the Gesuiti are Sts Stanislaus Kostka, Luigi Gonzaga, and Francesco Borgia. Balestra’s classicising art is apparent in the clearly defined physiognomies, and the composition is a lesson in the representation of unequivocal forms.