No. 1: Enea Piccolomini Leaves for the Council of Basel

The cycle’s first three scenes, beginning with the one on the right wall closest to the windows, represent the initial phase of Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s secular career.

In the first compartment we see the twenty-seven-year-old Enea Silvio setting out in the train of Cardinal Domenico Capranica for the Council of Basel in 1431. Wearing a splendid traveling cloak, a fur collar, and a pilgrim’s hat, the young man sits on a white horse - an obvious allusion to his future stature, for white horses were reserved for popes.