Battle of Tullus Hostilius against the Veientes

In 1595 Giuseppe Cesari was handed a large commission on the Capitoline hill. He was to fresco the great hall of the Palazzo dei Conservatori with stories of the city's first kings, and to finish in time for the Jubilee of 1600. This canvas, painted around 1596 or 1597, is his first model for one of those scenes. It follows the Roman historian Livy. Tullus Hostilius, Rome's third king, fights the armies of Veii and Fidenae just as his Alban allies pull out of the battle. On the right the king, on a white horse, turns toward a rider bringing news of the retreat. At the centre a fallen warrior lies on his back across another white horse. The Jubilee came and went. The fresco itself was finished only after 1601, with a noticeably different composition, and work on the whole hall dragged on until 1640.