Public Virtues of Greek and Roman Heroes: The Sacrifice of King Codron of Athens

The ceiling of the Sala del Concistoro was entirely painted by Domenico Beccafumi between 1529 and 1535, following an iconographical program illustrating the Public Virtues of Greek and Roman Heroes, taken from the writings of the Roman historian Valerius Maximus. The picture of The Sacrifice of King Codron of Athens, emblemizing patriotism, shows the king of Athens, Codron, who sacrificed his own life in order to fulfill an oracle’s prophecy which said that his death would be necessary for the victory of his people. The entire cycle is pervaded by a soft luminousness, heightened by a chromatic freshness which bursts out in the iridescence of some of the clothes, where the painter, in one of his signature touches, dissolves colors and fabrics under powerful jets of light, or blurs and mixes them as gusts of wind wrap the clothing around powerful, muscular bodies.