An architectural capriccio with figures,
oil on canvas, 205 x 164.5 cm, framed

The present painting depicts an imaginary architectural composition dominated by an imposing central building located at the top of a stairway. It is surrounded by Doric columns and surmounted by a dome on a tall tambour. The numerous details, such as the masks above the capitals and the cherub statues holding shells on the balustrade, are of great interest. The canvas is part of the seventeenth-century Roman landscape movement, which also included such artists as Viviano Codazzi, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Filippo Lauri, and Vicente Giner. This genre was partly inspired by the work of Dutch artists active in Rome around the mid-seventeenth century known as Bamboccianti and led by Peter Van Laer. The Bamboccianti in turn influenced the landscape movement, which formed in Venice during the following century.

This painting is particularly similar to those painted by Viviano Codazzi (circa 1603–1670), who originally came from Bergamo but was active in Rome towards the end of the 1640s, and who specialised in architectural perspectives. Unlike the heroic landscapes of contemporary artists from Emilia-Romagna and France, Codazzi’s work shows a constant search for verisimilitude, even in the case of invented images, and a use of light intended to highlight even the humblest of details. The details found in the present painting, such as the Doric columns, the colours of the buildings in the background, and the paved square, with a few tiles upturned, can also often be encountered in his work.

Elements from other compositions can be identified in the numerous figures animating the scene. For example, the woman with a vase on her head and another in her hand is related to the figure depicted in Raphael’s fresco Fire in the Borgo in the Stanze Vaticane.