The chamber has shown the affinity and communication of nature and human through its decorative ceiling. There are 34 thematic paintings on panels in the chamber in total, the thematic oval panels on the 4 sides of the room showing religious or mythological scenes, or representing scenes of production process and trade. The object collection itself was stored in 20 cabinets. The arrangement of this hidden vault room is quite unique, instead of showing the collections in a large cabinet, Francesco divided four areas to organize vista of thematic canvases.
Earth, water, air and fire are the four governing elements of each side of the space (Figure 1) These wall paintings showed the ultimate personal artistic preference of Francesco. Under each wall, there is a serial of exquisite oil paintings related to the theme. There are 19 of them distributed along the four thematic walls, covering by different oval -framed paintings that indicated the contents in the cupboard. “The paintings of the Studiolo concealed cabinets containing the dilettante prince’s collections of precious gems and artifact. ” Borghini got the project started with the two niches on the wall of Earth.
There were two required statues were placed there. One was Plutus and the other one was Ops. Both statues are made of precious material like gold, silver, porphryry, jasper, as well as marble and sandstone, which is a way to give physical attributes of the God. For the wall of water, there were naked god and goddess depicted in the delusional scenes. Most of the paintings were sharing the images of sea as background. Borghini insisted to place Venus, who was holding pearls in her hand standing on a shell. He also set Amphitrite as a marine nymph with coral and amber in the “joyful sea”, which well correspondent to the theme of water.
According to Borghini, fire is an “active” element. He decided to bring two muscular figures on the wall. There would also be some scenes that communicate with high temperature. For example, on the upper rectangular canvases of the Studiolo there is a painting named The Woolmaking Factory by Mirabello Cavalori. It vividly depicted the process of wool in cauldrons boiling over high flames. It is no hard to guess that treasures at that time like alum, which is a chemical used treatment of wool would have been kept in the cupboard under this painting.
There are two paintings that could most fetch the viewers’ attention. One is that Francesco himself was presented as an alchemist, the prince was depicted at the low right corner following the laboratory procedures in Giovanni Stardano’s painting || laboratorio dell’ Alchimista (The Alchemist’s Studio) (Figure 2), which represents the alchemy within the chamber is fully persistent with a dedicated program expressing the bonds and conjunctions within a living and animate universe, a macrocosm whose affinitive parts can be understood, controlled, and transformed through the intervention of humans.
Natural magic and alchemy play unmistakable roles in the Studiolo, and Francesco’s participation is part of a Medici pattern. This painting reasonably tells us the relationship of the Medici and art. They commissioned art by money; meanwhile they were developed from those masterpieces of great artists. This became a powerful statement of the Medici to announce their power and authority in Florence a and authority in Florence at that time.
For the wall of air. here was a young male figure with wings represents the cold wind named Boreas holding a crystal congealed and a female figure Juno, who was regarded as Mrs. Air, the governor of marriage. “Under her jurisdiction came rings, jewels, and precious stones such as diamonds, carbuncles, etc. , which were then set into rings. ” The other cabinet painting, which Francesco appeared on, is Giovanni Maria Butteri’s La Vetreria (Figure 3). Francesco shows up in the works merely as a participant in this quest for knowledge.
Francesco appears at the painting’s left, examining a goblet produced in the Medici lassworks. Francesco is virtually unnoticed by all but a few of the workers, suggesting the prince as merely an observer of the process of technological creation rather than director or creator of such innovation. When we move our sight onto the ceiling, we will see exquisite painted frescos about the story of Prometheus receives precious stones from nature in the central panel (Figure 4). It neatly wraps the critical idea of the Studiolo – the interactions between human beings and the dynamic nature. Personifications had been applied in the ceiling frescos in the chamber.
The theme of vault frescos communicates that Francesco’s interplay of mythology, nature and humanity, which also echoes to his interest both on art and science. Comparing to the studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini for Duke Federico, Duke Federico expressed his wide-ranging interests by putting celebrities from different domains. There were mythological figures, classical philosophers, as well as religious characters. Both of these two studiolos conveyed the idea that the owners of them are well educated and knowledgeable.