Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Sala d'Ercole in the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, Part II

1972; College Art Association; Volume: 54; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3048933

1559-6478

Loren Partridge,

Historical and Architectural Studies

iconography The most superficial level of meaning of the Sala d'Ercole is topographical. The peculiarities of the volcanic crater of the Lago di Vico in the Cimini mountains are explained by a myth recorded by Servius in his commentary on Virgil's Aeneid88 in which Hercules, when asked by the local peasants for a demonstration of his strength, plunged his staff deep into the earth; when the peasants were unable to extract the staff, Hercules, who was often associated in antiquity with the creation of water sources,89 pulled it out himself, thus creating the crater and the flow of water which became the Lago di Vico. So grateful were the peasants for the water that they built a temple to Hercules. The myth is illustrated in the five large scenes in the vault of the Sala d'Erocle.