The Age of Gold

The picture shows one of the scenes in the Stanza della Stufa. The Stanza della Stufa is a smaller room on the piano nobile that was one of the grand duke’s private chambers. It took its name from its heated floor (“stufa” means heater). Cortona painted here the Age of Gold and the Age of Silver on the north wall in 1637. The Age of Bronze and Age of Iron were realized only later in 1641. The iconographic concept is based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Pietro da Cortona was the Baroque artist ‘par excellence’ in Rome. His light colouring and the joy of life make one think of Rubens in such works as the Golden Age in the Stanza della Stufa of Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

This illustration to Ovid’s vision of a pure and innocent classical paradise alludes to the era of Ferdinando II’s rule and to the union of his House of Medici with that of the Della Rovere family, which occurred the same year this fresco was commissioned and executed.