Minneapolis Institute of Art

View in the Roman Forum

Viviano Codazzi; Michelangelo Cerquozzi

Date

early 1650s

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This realistic landscape is actually an architectural fantasy, or capriccio, created by Viviano Codazzi. It includes real ruins in the background, like the half-buried Arch of Septimius Severus and the Palazzo Senatorio in Rome. But the large ruin dominating the left foreground, with its row of Corinthian columns, is pure fiction. The painting was designed to lend a sense of grandeur to these architectural ruins, creating a setting more theatrical than pastoral. To make the scene more believable, Codazzi wanted to add figures, called staffage. But he was untrained in figure painting, so he hired another artist, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, to complete the work. Conservation of this picture's frame was made possible by a generous contribution from Al and Dena Naylor through the Art Champions program. Italy, Europe

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