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Palazzo Pepoli Campogrande
Herculean Ceilings
It was called 'Campogrande' from the big field Taddeo Pepoli, boss of Bologna in 1337–47, had to clear to build it. Taddeo’s heirs sold Bologna to Milan for 200,000 florins (not a popular move, but they later kissed and made up with the Bentivoglio), so that when Odoardo Pepoli was made a senator in 1653, there was still enough gold in the familu pot to rebuild the palace from scratch and commission lavish frescoes from Bologna’s best Baroque painters.
Along the grand stairway Domenico Canuti painted a history lesson of the Pepoli family. He also frescoed one of two incredible ceilings on the same theme, one obviously dear to the Pepoli heart, the Triumph of Hercules (1665).
Canuti's is very florid and busy, while Giuseppe Maria Crespi is a later, more restrained version (1691), with Allegories of the Seasons in the four corners. A third ceiling has Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot (1708) by Donato Creti.
Image by Archeobologna