The Golden Age

Around 1576, working in Rome for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, Jacopo Zucchi painted this small panel of the world's first age. Classical poets described the Golden Age as a lost time when people lived without laws or labour: the earth gave up its fruit on its own, spring lasted all year, and nobody needed to build houses or fence off land. Zucchi fills the scene with pale nude figures at ease in an open landscape, exactly that idea of a world before work. The panel travelled with the Medici collections, and by 1635 it hung in the Uffizi beside its companion, The Silver Age, though for a long time both were credited to another painter, Federico Zuccari, before Zucchi's name was restored. Their small size and shape have led some scholars to think the two were made as decorated covers for a pair of portraits.