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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
"Palazzo Colonna – A ceiling fresco with the apotheosis of Marcantonio Colonna, in the ante-chamber to the main hall. Dated 1700, this is Chiari's most important work in the field of monumental room decoration."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
Heroically nude, Hercules escorts Marcantonio Colonna toward the cloud-borne Virgin Mary on her throne. Hercules indicates his endorsement of this newcomer to the heavenly sphere by bestowing his gigantic club of authority and permitting the armored Marcantonio to bear it (erect) into the presence of the Queen of Heaven. Renaissance and Baroque viewers understood the brute strength of Hercules (and his club) as a generic emblem of Law and Order, enforced from the top down at the hands of an aristocratic state regime that was (needless to say) ordained by God.
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |
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| Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari Presentation of Marcantonio Colonna to the Virgin (detail) 1700 fresco Palazzo Colonna, Rome |