# The Council of Gods [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [LANFRANCO, Giovanni]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Fresco ## Commentary This fresco in the Villa Borghese, housing the Galleria Borghese, decorates the ceiling of a large room, called Sala della Loggia. Originally the room was a loggia opening onto the park of the villa, hence its name. Lanfranco created a wholly new typology for the depiction of Olympus with his painting of the loggia of Casino Borghese. He treated the ceiling centre and the vault as a unified illusionistic space, one in which the divine hierarchy and the formal arrangement are brought into harmony. Thanks to the perspective painted architecture, the secondary pictorial features - grisaille medallions, telamones, river gods and vases - are casually subordinated to the centre ceiling with its assembly of gods. ## Related artworks - [Angelica and Medoro]() - [Christ Ascending]() - [Christ Served by Angels]() - [Coronation of the Virgin with St Augustine and St William of Aquitaine]() - [Crossing cupola paintings]() - [Crucifixion \(detail\)]() - [Crucifixion]() - [Cupola vault \(detail\)]() - [Cupola vault]() - [Design for vault frescoes]() - [Ecstasy of St Margaret of Cortona]() - [Hagar in the Wilderness]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()