# Diana-Selene and Endymion

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/piola-paolo-gerolamo-rfd089de6080416/diana-selene-and-endymion-r7c7b2f0bd7d00f>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [PIOLA, Paolo Gerolamo](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/piola-paolo-gerolamo-rfd089de6080416>)
- Date: 1651-1700
- Technique: Fresco

## Commentary

The Palazzo Brignole Sale \(dubbed Palazzo Rosso because of the colour of its stucco exterior\) was erected between 1671 and 1679 on the prestigious Strada Nuova \(present-day Via Garibaldi\) in Genoa. The decoration of the palazzo was accomplished in two phases. In 1687-89 the team of Domenico Piola and Gregorio de Ferrari - with the assistance of Niccolò di Viviano Codazzi \(1642-1693\), Antonio Maria Haffner \(1654-1732\) and Sebastiano Monchi \(c. 1630-1706\) - painted the east wing, including the south loggia, then in 1691-92 the frescoes in the rooms of the west wing were executed by Giovanni Andrea Carlone with the assistance of Antonio Maria Haffner and Carlo Antonio Tavella \(1668-1738\). The quadratura painter Antonio Maria Haffner worked both for the Piola-Ferrari and Carlone teams. The south loggia \(shown in the photo\) was painted by Paolo Gerolamo Piola together with Nicolò Codazzi \(1642-1693\), the son of Viviano Codazzi. It is one of the few surviving examples of the typology of the &#34;room in ruins&#34; that so delighted a Baroque society fond of surprises. In the 1680s the Piola workshop had created a variant of the type in which the supposed ruin is neither a structure from antiquity nor one from centuries past, but a fully modern one. In the loggia of the Palazzo Rosso the simulated ruin is developed out of the actual structure: isolated chunks of the plaster and the cornice have fallen. The subject is a scene with the shepherd Endymion and the moon goddess Selene-Diana. Through an imaginary opening in the centre of the vault the goddess is floating down toward her sleeping lover.

## Related artworks

- [Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/piola-paolo-gerolamo-rfd089de6080416/salome-with-the-head-of-st-john-the-baptist-r4d8025b98e5a85>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)
