Hall of the Ruins

The “Hall of Ruins” owes its name to the incredibly rich fresco wall decoration, depicting monumental ruins strikingly overgrown with vegetation. The landscapes are divided by meticulous and precise frescoed architectural framing, consisting of a wide architrave with festoons supported by a system of pilasters adorned with masks, where the painted light matches the real light coming from the doors and windows.

Within the panels, one can glimpse Roman ruins that are either purely imaginary or inspired by reality, freely reinterpreted by the painter. On the northern wall, for instance, above the fireplace, the Colosseum is depicted flanked by the eponymous Colossus of Nero-Helios, with a figure beside it sketching it – likely a preliminary sketch for the artist’s self-portrait.
Critics attribute all the depictions of “woodland scenes” painted within the palace to the Milanese painter Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623-1683), who trained in Rome within Salvator Rosa’s circle and specialized precisely in ruin paintings. The execution of the more repetitive parts, however, is likely attributed to the Mariani family, one of the largest *quadratura* workshops active in Milan and Lombardy during that period.
Above the fireplace, rebuilt over pre-existing structures, appears an imposing “alliance coat of arms” held up by putti. Besides the Arese motto, it contains the combined emblems of the Arese, Omodei, and Visconti di Brebbia families, testifying to and guaranteeing the strength of the relationships between the different family branches.
Overall, the hall differs from the adjacent rooms, where nature’s primacy is almost flaunted, due to the predominance of architecture – the product of human ingenuity and therefore of culture. This victory, however, seems very short-lived compared to the eternity of nature, which is prominently featured here even in the landscape scenes, lending the buildings an almost ephemeral quality. Ruined architecture became extraordinarily widespread during the Baroque period precisely because of the particular evocative power offered by their forms, ‘corroded’ and ‘invaded’ by nature, which perfectly exemplified the concept of time relentlessly passing, inexorably altering even the finest and most solid human constructions. Furthermore, being able to display a series of ruin views within noble residences and pleasure villas offered the opportunity to showcase one’s culture and historical-architectural erudition to guests, albeit enhanced by particularly evocative backgrounds and, in some cases, with clear alterations from reality aimed at evoking the idea of a lost world.
In this hall, also known in palace inventories as the “Large Green Bed Chamber,” one can also spot common folk alongside nobles strolling among the ruins. Indeed, the paintings suggest the presence of a diverse social microcosm that sometimes borders on the grotesque and irreverent, as within the infinite variety of scenes presented, the artist conceals all human vices and behaviors. Alongside beggars asking for alms and nobles more interested in ladies than in what is happening around them, the artist also depicts partially nude men in the act of relieving themselves, almost winking at the observer. The painted room thus constitutes an almost infinite sequence of individual snapshots captured by the artist, who has placed human behaviors here within a single, unified context, offering the hosts and guests *divertissement* and the chance to observe and reflect on the multifaceted stage of the human comedy.