to three of the greatest Florentine painters of that time, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and Franciabigio. Upon the death of Leo X in 1 21, the work was interrupted, to be resumed only in 1 8 by Alessandro Allori who completed, by 1582, the unfinished scenes and the entire hall, partly modifying the general decorative scheme. On the walls, the following subjects are seen: entrance wall (south), to the left, Consul Flaminius Speaking to the Council of the Achaeans (Allori); to the right, Julius Caesar Receiving Tributes from Egypt (a masterpiece by Andrea del Sarto, completed by Alessandro Allori); and above the entrance portal, Prudence, Fortitude and Vigilance (Allori). On the north wall to the right are Cicero’s Return from Exile (Franciabigio, completed by Allori); to the left, Syphax, King of Numidia, Receiving Scipio (Allori); and above the portal towards the state dining room, Magnificence, Magnanimity and Generosity (Allori). On the side wall to the east is a lunette with Vertumnus and Pomona (an absolute masterpiece by Pontormo); below, Piety, Virtue and Justice (Allori). On the east wall is a lunette with Hercules and Fortune in the Garden of the Hesperides (Allori) and, below, Fame, Glory and Honour (Allori). Among all these frescoes, the marvellous lunette with Vertumnus and Pomona by Pontormo stands out, in which the bucolic spirit of life in a villa blends with a refined allusion to the themes of classical antiquity, to the allegory of time that cyclically returns and thus to the return of the Medici to Florence after their exile and their rising to power anew as the lords of the city and of Tuscany. Of great interest is also the fresco by Andrea del
Sarto, even for the presence of rare species of exotic animals, an allusion to Lorenzo’s menagerie at Poggio a Caiano and that of Pope Leo X in Rome. Other animals, shells, and citrus and other fruits were painted in abundance by Alessandro Allori in the panels that complete the hall’s decoration. Of the mural decorations from the time of Grand Prince Ferdinando (between the end of the 1 th and the beginning of the 18th centuries) only the large fresco of the vault in the state dining room on the piano nobile remains today, with the Apotheosis of Cosimo the Elder Presented to Jupiter by the City of Florence, a masterpiece by Anton Domenico Gabbiani, carried out in 16 8. Other rooms in the prince’s apartment once displayed decorations, now lost, like: frescoes, (the Olympus in the alcove, 16 1, also by Gabbiani), stuccoes (like the chapel by Ciceri, 16 6), and other paintings (the Allegory of the Arts, 1 06-1 0 ) by Sebastiano Ricci, in the Cabinet of small works). If the frescoed vaults of some rooms can be dated to the late 18th century (for example, the one in the first drawing room in the apartment to the west, perhaps by Traballesi), the papiers peints, or wallpaper, decoration of a hall on the second floor dates to the beginning of the 1 th century, the only one remaining of the décors that probably also adorned the other halls on the top floor. The wallpapers, purchased in France in 180 from the Dufour Maçon factory, depict expansive Central American landscapes, with exotic plants and figures of savages, seen from inside a faux loggia with cane and wicker gratings. Instead, we owe Elisa Baciocchi, Napoleon’s sister, the next phase of decenglish version
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