More than the other great Bolognese painters of the seventeenth century, Guido Reni represents a fundamental model for the Pesaro figurative culture of that period.
A decisive influence on local artists – and among them on the young Simone Cantarini – is in fact produced by the famous altarpiece with St. Thomas and St. Jerome he created for the Cathedral and now for the Vatican Pinacoteca.
The Fall of the Giants, his only work in the city today, preserved in the Civic Museums, does not come from a Pesaro picture gallery, but from the Bolognese Hercolani collection acquired by museums thanks to the legacy of the musician Gioachino Rossini.
It is a large painting – executed around 1638-1639 – in which the typical figurative composure of Reni gives way to a composition with vigorous movements and violent features, destined to evoke the mythical clash between the tremendous giant sons of the earth and the gods of Olympus.
Struck by the wrath of Zeus – represented together with the eagle handing him lightning – the giants fall overwhelmed by huge boulders. The scene is set according to a bold perspective that suggests a particular location for the work: probably the decoration of a ceiling in a private residence.
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