Conservators' Apartment - Hall of Hannibal
Hall of Hannibal
Of all the rooms in the fifteenth-century Palazzo dei Conservatori, this is the only room that has maintained its original proportions. The frescoed decoration dating back to the first decade of the XVI century and traditionally attributed to Jacopo Ripanda celebrates episodes of the Punic Wars in four scenes; underneath runs a long frieze with niches containing busts of Roman generals.
The wooden ceiling, carried out a short time after the frescoed decoration, bears a carved image of the Capitoline She-Wolf at its centre. In the centre of the room there is a large bronze krater with an inscription on the rim referring to Mithras VI King of Pontus, probably a spoil of war brought to Rome from the East by Sulla or Pompeius in the I century BC.
List of works
