by: Peruzzi patron: Turamini category: Fresco location: Castello di Belcaro
note: Frescoes attributed to Peruzzi thanks in part to an eighteenth-century letter: "And it required the artist (Peruzzi) to adorn the castle. He did so with the peace of mind all the more gratifying to those who due to the endless riots and dangerous events, almost miraculously, found in an open, secure, uncrowded, distant but only three miles from home. (Peruzzi's) paintings here, belong in a museum, and are among the best he ever made...The colors are so fresh, and so natural that seem posed by nature itself above fruitful and healthy bodies; the design is correct without appearing art. They do not have the muscularity favored by Michelangelo, but everything is freshness, youth, and bloom. It seems that he did this work with the calmer mood; because in this composition, even the most difficult things emerged easily from his brush, obedient to a fertile imagination." (Guglielmo della Valle, Lettere senesi di un socio dell'Accademia di Fossano sopra le belle arti, vol. 3, 1798) Connected to other imagery sourced from the Domus Aurea (Dacos 2008: 36).