Allegory of Fire

This is one of four round canvases, each about 1.8 metres across, that Francesco Albani painted for Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, a younger son of Duke Charles Emmanuel I. The cardinal had admired the round pictures of the loves of Venus and Diana that Albani made for Cardinal Scipione Borghese in Rome, and in 1625 he ordered a set of his own, on the four elements.

For Fire, Albani joined a workshop to a myth. In front, cupids make arrows in the forge of Vulcan, who reclines at the left, while Venus rides across the sky in her chariot handing out burning torches. On the right lies Semele, her heart already pierced by love's arrow, and Jupiter hovers above her with his thunderbolts. In Ovid's telling she asked to see him as he truly was, and his fire burned her up.