Aurora Room

The decoration of the ceiling was executed in 1782 by Domenico Corvi (1721-1803). In the centre are three paintings representing the Allegory of Aurora and the Twilights of Dawn and Dusk,. Medallions with zodiacal signs, busts of philosophers, and fake monochrome bas-reliefs with the seasons and their related allegoris are inserted in geometrical compartments executed by Giovan Battista Marchetti (1730-1800). The walls are decorated with grottesques on a gold background with months, signs of the zodiac, and twenty-four medallions with images of famous men of antiquity. The dominant theme of the decoration is the passing of time through the day, the months, and the seasons.

The room hosts works by artists from Lombardy, the Veneto, and the Ferrara area in the first half of the sixteenth century, including the Last Supper, the Adorationof the Shepherds, and Sheep and Lamb by Jacopo Bassano (c. 1515-1592), the Portrait of a Youth and Tobiolo and the Angel by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (c. 1480 - post 1548). There are also five paintings here by Dosso Dossi (c. 1490 - 1542) next to works by his brother Battista (1497-1548) and son Evangelista (?-1586), which emphasize Cardinal Scipione’s passion for Ferrarese painting of the sixteenth century.
In the centre of the room is the sculpture in nero antico marble by Alessandro Algardi depicting the allegory of Sleep, based on a Hellenistic prototype of a sleeping child.