Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto

Around 1597, soon after Caravaggio reached Rome, his patron Cardinal del Monte had him paint this small room in a garden villa. Del Monte was fascinated by alchemy, so the three gods overhead stand for the three principles the alchemists cared about: Jupiter for sulphur, Neptune for mercury, and Pluto for salt. Look up and Jupiter spins a glass sphere with the sun and earth inside it, his eagle beside him. This is the only ceiling Caravaggio ever painted, and he did it in oil straight onto the plaster, not in fresco, which is why the flesh has that heavy, lit-from-below weight he usually saved for canvas. All three faces, people have long noticed, look a good deal like his own. It stayed hidden for a long stretch and was only rediscovered in 1968.