Frescoes in the Palazzo Ricci-Sacchetti, Rome (1552-54)

Cecchino del Salviati was entrusted by Cardinal Giovanni Ricci (1497-1574) to paint the hall in his newly acquired palace in the Via Giulia in Rome in 1552. In ten of the eleven rooms frescoed, mostly by little-known artists, the painting consists only of narrow wall friezes, some with themes from antiquity, some with themes from the Old Testament. By contrast, the hall, now known as the Sala dei Mappamundi and previously as the Sala dell'Udienza Invernale, received a significantly more elaborate decoration by the best available painter, Salviati.

The general subject - the story of David as told in the first and second books of Samuel - was assigned to Salviati by Ricci, but in the choice of the individual scenes Salviati seems to have had great freedom.

Salviati designed an original decorative system which dealt with the existing features of the room whose walls were irregularly divided by windows and doors. The decorative system gives the impression of being in a room in which an art lover is putting his treasures on display. The decoration is intended to show the wealth and fortune of its patron.

The fifteen scenes of the story of David are not arranged in a chronological order, rather they are organized according to criteria of formal symmetry and thematic correspondences.