Tra le Parrasie vocali selve, e le rupi Menalie

Abstract

In 1820 in Perugia was inaugurated the sala arcadica della Colonia Augusta painted by Giovanni Monotti and Carlo Cencioni. The room, still preserved, was used as headquarters of Arcadians’ winter meetings and is a rare example of decoration directly inspired by the themes of the Arcadian Academy. A number of significant references to Arcadian traditions and rituals handed down by custom and by the writings of the Academy are discernible in the landscapes and in the ornamentations of the cycle of paintings. These paintings are also an important step in a long process that testifies an emerging taste for stanze a boschereccia and late Neoclassic landscape in Papal States as a way to affirm a shared cultural and artistic language.