Medici Riccardi Palace, Gallery of Mirrors (or Room Luca Giordano): “Jupiter and the apotheosis of the Medici”, detail of the vault.Frescoes by Luca Giordano, 1682 - 1685.The scene is placed in the centre of the vault. It shows Jupiter on the high summit of a mountain of clouds, surrounded by six members of the Medici family. Cosimo I (on the right, with the attributes of Prudence) and Francesco I (on the left, with the attributes of Justice; uncertain identification) are recognizable on the sides of the supreme god; at the bottom is Ferdinand II (central character with the club and the lion at one's feet, symbols of Fortitude). Even further down are Cosimo III, wrapped in a red cloak while he tempers a red-hot iron in water (an idealized portrait, in order to depict the Grand Duke as the personification of Temperance), and on the sides the latter's children: Gian Gastone ( on the left) and Ferdinand (on the right), both on white horses. All six of these personalities are characterized by the presence of a star on their heads which symbolizes the Medici satellites, that is. those that Galileo Galilei discovered in 1610 and dedicated to the Florentine grand ducal family.
