FALCONETTO, Giovanni Maria

The Villa dei Vescovi dominates the surrounding countryside from a hill at the foot of Mount Solona. The villa follows a design by Givanni Maria Falconetto that radically remodeled a preexisting structure. After Falconetto’s death the construction was brought to completion by Falconetto’s disciple Andrea da Valle (d. 1578). The villa still contains some of its original frescoes which are attributed to Lambert Sustris. The most representative space is the so-called hall of the all’antica figures which retains its original proportions and pictorial decoration by Sustris.

The painter Falconetto later turned to architecture and worked mostly in Padua, in the service of Alvise Cornaro, an influential humanist and architect who is credited with introducing the Roman Renaissance style to northern Italy. Examples of Falconetto’s work include the Odeon and Loggia (1524) in Cornaro’s Palazzo Giustiniani. The Loggia was created for theatrical performances; the Odeon was devoted to musical entertainment and is decorated by frescoes, grotesques and stuccoes.

The walls of Padua are a complex of defensive works around the Italian city of Padua. One of the main gates of access is the Porta San Giovanni, designed by the architect Giovanni Maria Falconetto. This gate, completed in 1528, originally had a frieze showing the Lion of Saint Mark, symbol of the Venetian Republic. The frieze was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars.

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

This composite scene depicts Hercules Fighting the Lernean Hydra; Juno Transforms the Crab into a Constellation; Hay Harvest; The Colosseum and the Porta Aurea in Ravenna.

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

In astronomy, the zodiac is the ring of constellations that lines the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The twelve signs of the zodiac are the following:

Aries (The Ram)

Taurus (The Bull)

Gemini (The Twins)

Cancer (The Crab)

Leo (The Lion)

Virgo (The Virgin)

Libra (The Scales)

Scorpio (The Scorpion)

Sagittarius (The Archer)

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat)

Aquarius (The Water Bearer)

Pisces (The Fishes)

According to Vasari, Falconetto produced a number of works for Ludovico Gonzaga, a member of a collateral branch of the ruling Gonzaga family in Mantua. These works include the fresco decoration in the Sala dello Zodiaco (Hall of the Zodiac) in what is now part of the Palazzo d’Arco. Here the artist, who was expert in all things ancient, painted a large cosmological decoration based on the Cycle of Months that Pinturicchio painted in the Roman palace of Cardinal Domenico della Rovere in about 1490, which is today almost totally lost.

Falconetto created a complex architectural framework decorated with fictive marble reliefs and pilasters sporting capricious grotesques and imperial medallions, all beneath a splendid frieze animated by satyrs, sphinxes, and a variety of monstrous creatures that alternate with mythological scenes taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Twelve arched openings penetrate this riot of decoration, and each offers an illusionistic view into a deep passage that ends with an architectural monument, usually something recognizable like the Arch of Augustus in Fano, the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, or the Coliseum. Each archway is also painted with the zodiac sign appropriate to the month it represents and is populated with characters from ancient history and myth.