Room of the Aldobrandini Wedding
Room of the Aldobrandini Wedding
The Room of the Aldobrandini Wedding, previously known as the Room of Samson on account of the ceiling frescoes by Guido Reni narrating the Stories of Samson (Samson Lifting the Gate of Gaza, Samson Killing the Philistines, Samson Wrestling with the Lion) owes its name to the famous Roman fresco on the rear wall. It was built under Paul V by Flaminio Ponzio between 1605 and 1608. The floor, dating from the mid-nineteenth century, is composed of Roman age mosaic fragments: the median pastiche, geometric, has as its central emblem Achilles on a wagon dragging the body of Hector, and is from Vigna Brancadoro (Rome, Via Tiburtina).
For a short period the room housed the collection of Prints (after the demolition of the special Gabinetto to make way for the construction of the New Wing in 1822), but from 1838 was used for the display of Roman age paintings: the Aldobrandini Wedding, the group of the Heroines of Tor Marancia and the female figure from the estate of St. Basil on the Via Nomentana, to which the Odyssey cycle of Via Graziosa was added in 1853, and the Ostia frescoes from 1968 onwards.
More recent additions have been made: the inscription of the insula Sertoriana and the mosaics of the Furietti collection (Three garlands and Beasts in an exotic landscape), previously in Clement XIII’s Profane Museum.