# Ceiling of the portego [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [RICCI, Sebastiano]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Fresco ## Commentary The Palazzetto Zane was <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/g/gaspari/zane.html'\)" href="/html/g/gaspari/zane.html">designed by Antonio Gaspari</a> not as a place in which to live, but merely as a place in which to enjoy oneself. Marino Zane, the seventeenth-century owner of the building, wanted the vault of the double-height portego - the principal room around which the various spaces of the villa were organized - decorated in stucco work. He commissioned Abbondio Stazio, and a less-well-known artist, Andrea Pelli, to execute the work. The frescoes, formerly attributed to Nicolò Bambini, were in fact painted by Sebastiano Ricci. The central compartment of the ceiling depicts Hercules between Glory and Virtue, in the four corners are monochromes of Olympian gods. The pairs of monochrome medallions depict Mercury and Diana, Amphitrite and Neptune, Juno and Pan, Hercules and Jupiter, and symbols of the four elements - Earth, Water, Air and Fire. The monochromes are inserted in stucco frames supported by graceful putti and intertwined with wreaths of leaves, some oak, some laurel. ## Related artworks - [Allegory of Marcantonio Colonna's Victory at Lepanto]() - [Altar of St Gregory the Great]() - [Amor Virtutis Casts Ignorantia down into Orcus]() - [Angel of the Annunciation]() - [Apotheosis of Hercules]() - [Bacchanal in Honour of Pan]() - [Bacchanal in Honour of Pan]() - [Bacchus and Ariadne]() - [Bathsheba at her Bath]() - [Bathsheba]() - [Battle of the Romans and the Sabines \(detail\)]() - [Battle of the Romans and the Sabines]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()