Ceiling Design with the Story of the Slave Girls of Smyrna

Franco’s ceiling illustrates the victory of the ancient city of Smyrna (modern Izmir) over the Sardians, the inhabitants of Sardis. When the Sardians offered to end their siege in return for the wives of Smyrna, a beautiful slave girl suggested that she and her companions go instead. The girls dressed the part and were welcomed by the Sardians, who, however, were taken prisoner when they were overcome by sleep. A festival to Venus was held every year thereafter in honor of the slave girls and the victory they had brought about. The theme of female supremacy gained through intelligence would have been appropriate for an ephemeral nuptial structure, underlining the bride’s ancestral lineage, or for a private setting, such as a palace ceiling celebrating a female patron. The drawing may have been made on the occasion of Duke Guidobaldo II della Rovere’s second marriage, to Vittoria Farnese, in 1548, for which Franco contributed substantially to the ephemeral decorations.¹

Ruled diagonal lines form seven compartments containing the main episodes of the story. There are an additional ten small panels, eight of which contain Sardian prisoners, while those to either side of the central panel illustrate an angel and St. George and the Dragan, respectively. The narrative unfolds in a clockwise direction from the bottom with the events enumerated and inscribed.

John Gere observed that the group of dancing figures in the central episode is copied from Giulio Romano’s fresco in the Loggia della Grotta in the Palazzo del Te, Mantua, or taken from his preparatory study, now in the Albertina, Vienna.²

Footnotes:

1. See Lauder 2004, 2: 484-85, no. 266DA.
2. See Christie’s, London, 3 July 1984, lot 14; Albertina, Vienna, inv. 323.