Design for a Wall Decoration

Trained in Florence under Giorgio Vasari, Jacopo Zucchi spent most of his career in Rome working for members of the Medici family in residence there. This architectural drawing is for an unknown decorative project; the coat-of-arms above the doorway, with the six balls or palle of the Medici, indicates it was executed for them. It was probably a proposed design for a gallery in the newly acquired Villa Medici on the Pincian Hill in Rome, where Zucchi worked on several projects. Of the thirty or so drawings attributed with reasonable security to Zucchi, many are decorative architectural drawings such as this one.