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FERRARA

Hall of the Months
 

Palazzo Schifanoia's frescoes and the Hall of the Months are the real essence of Renaissance Ferrara. Under Leonello d'Este the palace became the innermost heart of the court and the sancta sancto­rum of its pleasures.

 Borso, his successor, commissioned a self-celebratory work revealing the connection between his dynasty and fate, between his every action on earth and the plan of the uni­verse. The frescoes painted between 1469 and 1470 were conceived by Cosmè Tura - lea­der of the Officina and the only one of its representatives to work exclusively in Ferrara - in agree­ment with Pellegrino Prisciani. The remaining Months show tra­ces of Francesco di Cossa, Ercole de' Roberti and unknown artists like the so-called "Maestro degli Occhi Spalancati" and “Maestro di Ercole”. The three segments of decoration that make up the cycle are honzontally linked, while each month can be read vertically: be­low, episodes from the life of Borso d'Este; in the middle the signs of the zodiac accompanied by de­cans, human figures connected to constellations, the legacy of an ar­chaic oriental astrology that mo­dern man can no longer decipher; above, the triumph of the divinities that rule the Months. The frescoes sum up the symbolic importance of a culture that looks to humani tas but is still fascinated by my­stery and the irrational - many of the enigmas have yet to be sol­ved, which may have been the in­tention of their creators;