Camera di San Paolo

The journey around the museum of the “Camera of San Paolo” you come across the private apartment of the Abbess, Giovanna da Piacenza, located in the ancient Benedictine monastery of St. Paul, which at the beginning of the sixteenth century was one of the most important cultural centers of the city. After passing through a few rooms, one arrives at the almost perfect symmetrical room whose ceiling was painted in 1514 by a local painter, Alessandro Araldi, using rich ornamentation and grotesque painted candelabras, in which are included both sacred scenes and profane images. The next room which was painted by Antonio Allegri Correggio in 1519, was done in the Renaissance style. It was painted using illusionistic decorations and young vine shoots which open onto fake ovals with cherubs, whilst the lower part of the room is completed with fake niches in monochrome containing mythological figures. The fireplace holds a representation of Diana, an obvious reference to the abbess Giovanna da Piacenza, who commissioned the work, and whose heraldic emblem is at the center of the ceiling.