Vertumnus and Pomona

The fresco decoration of Vertumnus and Pomona in the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano (near Montalbano) is a masterpiece by Jacopo Pontormo. The villa is set among orchards and gardens, and served in summer as an outdoor respite to the heat in Florence. The fresco surrounds a lunette, high in a barrel-vaulted central hall. The allegorical figures over the doors and the facing fresco depicting Julius Caesar, begun by Pontormo’s mentor, Andr... more

The fresco decoration of Vertumnus and Pomona in the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano (near Montalbano) is a masterpiece by Jacopo Pontormo. The villa is set among orchards and gardens, and served in summer as an outdoor respite to the heat in Florence. The fresco surrounds a lunette, high in a barrel-vaulted central hall. The allegorical figures over the doors and the facing fresco depicting Julius Caesar, begun by Pontormo’s mentor, Andrea del Sarto, were completed decades later by Alessandro Allori. Pontormo initially received the commission from Ottaviano de' Medici and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Clement VII, and Giovanni de’ Medici (later pope as Leo X). The painting depicts peasants, including a naked youth, picking fruit or lounging beneath trees in a walled framework. Putti garland the window. The stated theme is the classical myth of Vertumnus and Pomona taken from a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The myth is that of Pomona, a beautiful but haughty wood... less