Abstract

What does the lunette painted in the early seventeenth century by Annibale Carracci for the Aldobrandini Chapel tell us? At a first glance, nothing. We might get a generic impression of serenity, conveyed by the soft colors of the countryside and the gray-blue sky crossed by clouds. But the disproportion between the landscape and what happens within it reveals that the landscape is the true subject of the scene. Nature shows all its power and the painted landscape is an unexpected container of fears.