As an illustration of Ignorance, a naked man wearing a blindfold and a crown sits amid pages torn from books by cherubs or putti. Allegorical fresco painted around 1540 by Mantuan artist Alberto Cavalli on the front of the Mazzanti Houses (Case Mazzanti) in Piazza delle Erbe, Verona, Veneto, Italy. Cavalli, a pupil of Mannerist artist Giulio Romano, used mythological scenes on the facade to depict themes such as Prudence, Providence, Good Governance, Anger, Envy and Ignorance.
Verona, Veneto, Italy: Ignorance personified … a naked man, wearing a blindfold and a crown, sits amid scattered pages torn from books by cherubs or putti, in an allegorical fresco painted around 1540 by Mantuan artist Alberto Cavalli on the front of the Case Mazzanti (Mazzanti houses) in Piazza delle Erbe. The fresco is among several by Cavalli on the facade using mythological scenes to depict virtues and vices such as Prudence, Providence, Good Governance, Anger, Envy and Ignorance. At one time, Verona, with more than 300 frescoed facades, was known as ‘Urbs Picta’ (painted city). In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Veronese nobility – seeking to confirm their status and display their good taste and wealth – employed artists to decorate their palaces and mansions on the outside, although frescoes were much cheaper than friezes and ornament sculpted in stone. The Case Mazzanti, built in the 13th century, are among Verona’s oldest dwellings. They were once owned by the della Scala or Scaliger family, who used the upper floors as a granary and the lower levels as living space and shops. When the Scaligeri took control of Verona, they moved to a finer palace on Piazza dei Signori and their former home passed, in 1527, to the wealthy Mazzanti family of merchants. A Latin inscription on the facade explains that Matteo Mazzanti commissioned Alberto Cavalli to paint the building “as an ornament of the homeland’. Cavalli was a pupil of the leading Mannerist artist and architect Pippi Giulio de 'Jannuzzi or Giannuzzi, better known as Giulio Romano (1499-1546), who replaced Andrea Mantegna as court artist to the Gonzagas, rulers of Mantua. Cavalli, admired for his use of bright colours and his skill in depicting gigantic figures, helped Romano decorate the Gonzagas’ Palazzo Te at Mantua and he also frescoed ceilings in the Gonzaga palace at Sabbioneta, Lombardy.
Size: 4026px × 2679px
Location: Verona, Veneto, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1499-1546, 1500s, 1540s, alberto, allegorical, art, artist, blind, blindfold, blindfolded, books, casa, case, cavalli, century, cherubs, city, , dei, delle, erbe, facade, family, fresco, frescoed, frescoes, giulio, green, heritage, houses, ignorance, illiterate, illustration, illustrations, italian, italy, kerr, man, mannerism, mannerist, mantuan, mazzanti, men, mid, mid-16th, mural, mythological, naked, northern, pages, painted, paintings, philistine, philistinism, piazza, picta, pupil, putti, renaissance, restored, romano, scattered, shutters, site, tearing, terence, torn, uneducated, unesco, urbs, veneto, verona, wall, wall-painting, wilfully, window, world
