Most of the fresco cycles so numerous…

Most of the fresco cycles so numerous in early seventeenth century-Rome represent framed episodes imitating canvases such as found in the Sistine Chapel ceiling or in Carraccis' The Loves of the Gods in the Farnese gallery, completed in 1601.

Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) had in 1633 commissioned Pietro da Cortona to paint a fresco cycle for the ceiling of their family palace.

The huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power, completed six years later, marks a watershed in Baroque painting.

Containing endless number of heraldic symbols and subthemes, the fresco is an illusion with the central field apparently open to the sky and scores of figures seen 'al di sotto in su' apparently coming into the room itself or floating above it.