Written in French
At the heart of the Farnese Palace, headquarters of the French Embassy in Italy, lies a decoration that, since its completion in the early 1600s, has been considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Western painting, a Sistine Chapel for the 17th century and a model for many decorations throughout Europe for almost three hundred years. This is the gallery painted by Annibale Carracci, his brother Agostino, and their students. To enable visitors to appreciate its immense beauty, the Louvre Museum is, in a sense, moving the Farnese Gallery to Paris, reassembling it "like a jigsaw puzzle" with the help of the most extraordinary collection of preparatory drawings for this decoration ever assembled. For if the Farnese Gallery has aroused so much admiration and inspired so many artists-from the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles to the foyer of the Opéra Garnier-it is as much for the beauty of its frescoes as for that of its preparatory drawings. Never before, for any other decor, have so many drawings been preserved, from quick sketches outlining the artist's very first ideas to large cartoons measuring several meters across, where the drawing is scaled to the size of the fresco. The book also gives readers a glimpse into the engaging personality of its principal architect: Annibale. The Farnese Gallery is undoubtedly his masterpiece, his last great work, a model for posterity and a permanent source of wonder for all those who admire its frescoes and drawings. It marks both an unparalleled achievement and embodies a tragedy: that of a young artist, driven to exhaustion, who would never paint again after it and would die upon its completion.
320 pages
