Aurora Hall

The “Sala Aurora” (Aurora Room) constitutes the apex of an elaborate iconographic apparatus that skillfully combines themes from classical mythology with the biblical-Judaic and socio-political culture of the seventeenth century. The centerpiece of the room’s decoration is a frescoed medallion depicting the “Apparition of the Solar Chariot to Aurora,” attributed to Giovanni Stefano Doneda, known as il Montalto (1608-1690).

The scene shows Apollo proceeding on a richly decorated golden quadriga, drawn by four majestic white horses. Before him, on the right side of the painting, Aurora dances with her arms raised upwards and her hands full of flowers, surrounded by cherubs. On the left of the composition, Minerva directs the young Giulio II Arese towards the chariot, positioned with his back to the observer, holding a lit torch in his right hand, a symbol of his desire for knowledge. The painting symbolizes, in fact, the solid knowledge and great wisdom attained by the Arese family, who govern and administer with wisdom (because they base their work on tradition and history), leading Cesano Maderno and the State of Milan towards a new fertile and playful “spring/aurora” and towards a new era of happiness. It is, in fact, Minerva, goddess of intelligence and wisdom, who guides Giulio II Arese, son of Bartolomeo, towards the light of knowledge represented by the chariot of the Sun, just as it is intelligence that guides the King of Spain in choosing trusted advisors to maintain his Kingdom.

The painting, therefore, marries the glory of the family with the ideology of the state: in the difficult historical moment following the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, the Arese family has the courage to hypothesize not the decline for the Iberian monarchy, as much of Europe would have wished, but even a radiant future, in which it is easy to see the renewed hope provided by the birth of Charles II (1661) who, after a long series of deaths among the royal offspring, had averted the risk of extinction of the lineage of the Habsburgs of Spain.

The central medallion is inserted in a decoration in gold and blue frames on a white background of eighteenth-century origin, attributable to Mattia Bortoloni (1695-1750) and executed, probably, to celebrate the wedding between Renato III Arese Borromeo and Marianna Erba Odescalchi, which took place in 1743. The decorative system, proceeding from the north-eastern corner clockwise, also includes a cycle of sails alternating with lunettes of more modest dimensions painted, in which the classical theme of the iconography of dancing satyrs is combined with the depiction of the loves of mythological deities. The sequence of sails, not all of which have been preserved to this day, originally included: “Apollo and Daphne,” “Bacchus and Ariadne” (a scene almost completely disappeared), and the depiction of “Erotes and the Goat Amalthea.” The series of lunettes, on the other hand, was composed of the “Triumph of Ariadne” (a disappeared scene), “Diana and Actaeon,” “Orpheus and Eurydice,” “Venus and Adonis,” “Ariadne and an Eros,” “Triumph of Galatea,” “Arion, Jupiter and Callisto,” “Pan and Syrinx surprised by Apollo” and the “Divinization of Ariadne.”

Before this eighteenth-century decoration, eight paintings were hung on the walls depicting full-length Spanish sovereigns, and the space of the lunettes was occupied by twelve octagonal paintings with portraits of princes, which is why the room was also called the “Large Room of Portraits.”