# View of the Loggia di Galatea [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PERUZZI, Baldassare]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Fresco ## Commentary After the building was completed the initial focus of the decoration was the garden loggia on the Tiber side of the villa \(the Loggia di Galatea\). Originally it opened to the landscape on two sides through arcades. The vault of the loggia was decorated by Peruzzi in 1510-11 with a system of architectonic fields painted with deceptive realism that contain a number of mythological figures against a blue sky. The artist based their appearance and form on numerous ancient sculptures. The stories of gods and heroes symbolized constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac that merge to form a sky like the one that have been seen in 1466 at the hour of Chigi's birth. The twelve signs of the zodiac are distributed above the ten spandrels, to which are added - corresponding to their positions in the sky - the gods of the planets. In the ceiling panel several constellations are emphasized in two large horizontal formats: on the right Ursa Major; on the left Perseus and Pegasus. Peruzzi also frescoed one of the lunettes with a monumental grisaille head - a showpiece of pure expressive artistry. The other lunettes were painted in the fall of 1511 by Sebastiano del Piombo with a number of scenes of metamorphosis from Ovid. ## Related artworks - [Apollo and the Muses]() - [Ceiling decoration]() - [Ceiling decoration \(Volta Dorata\)]() - [Decoration of the Sala delle Prospettive]() - [Exterior view]() - [Exterior view]() - [Interior view]() - [Perseus and Pegasus]() - [Perspective view of the Sala delle Prospettive]() - [Perspective view of the Sala delle Prospettive]() - [Perspective view of the Sala delle Prospettive]() - [Tomb of Pope Hadrian VI]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()