Aetas Felicior Hall: The Golden Age

Central fresco of the vault. Born by the collaboration of Jacopo Zanguidi, known as "Il Bertoja", and Girolamo Mirola, the hall of the kiss was probably painted between the 60'/70' of 1500. The general theme of the room is summed up in the engraving that sorrounds the central fresco of the vault, where is portrayed a lying Venus who turns her sight to Eros and turns her shoulders to a satyr: "AETAS FELICIOR", which means "THE HAPPIEST TIME". The scenes painted take their inspiration from the "Orlando Furioso" by Matteo Maria Boiardo and the pictorical cycle starts in the vault to follow in a clockwise direction from the western wall. A second inscription follows the ornament between the walls and the vault: "TRAHETAS SUA QUEMQUAE VOLUPTAS"; an hemistichium of Virgil which was wrongly transcripted and means "EVERYONE IS ATTRACTED BY ITS OWN PLEASURE".