**1. Introduction**

Villa Farnesina, the Renaissance Roman villa built in 1506 by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi, patron and close friend of Raphael, is currently the headquarters of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, which is devoted to promoting and protecting its huge artistic heritage consisting in some of the most famous artworks of the Italian Renaissance Masters—Raphael included—which were summoned by Chigi for adorning his own private, suburban, relaxing place. Among the artists who left their sempiternal mark inside the residence was Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, better known as Sodoma (1477–1549), who frescoed the bridal suite of Agostino Chigi and his beloved Francesca Ordeaschi. The suite was decorated with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great, including his marriage with Roxane, in explicit reference to that of Chigi. Before the new restoration of the room began, some non-invasive analyses were carried out on the two walls painted by Sodoma and his workshop depicting the *Darius family before Alexander* on the east wall (Figure 1) and *Alexander meeting his new bride-to-be Roxane* on the north wall (Figure 2). A third wall, the west one, depicts the *Taming of Bucephalus* by an unknown author (Figure 3). It was frescoed later than the other two walls because it hosted the double bed of Agostino Chigi and Francesca Ordeaschi. After the death of both of them, in 1520, the wall was decorated, but it is still uncertain how much later this work was carried out and by whose hand. Taking advantage of an imminent restoration campaign involving the northern and eastern

**Citation:** Vagnini, M.; Anselmi, C.; Azzarelli, M.; Sgamellotti, A. Things Always Come in Three: Non-Invasive Investigations of Alexander and Roxane's Wedding Room in Villa Farnesina. *Heritage* **2021**, *4*, 2792–2809. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage 4040157

Academic Editors: Antonio Alvarez Fernandez-Balbuena and Daniel Vazquez-Molini

Received: 30 August 2021 Accepted: 25 September 2021 Published: 29 September 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

walls, the non-invasive analyses were also extended to the *Taming of Bucephalus,* the west wall, which was never investigated before, aiming to collect information about its painting material to be compared with the other two walls of certain authorship in order to establish the epoch of this fresco. It is important to highlight that both the north and the east wall underwent many restorations, three of them documented. The first restoration dates back to 1870, when the Duke of Ripalta, shortly after buying the Villa in emphyteusis [1], had these murals restored, adopting as a programmatic choice to "entrust the restoration of the frescoes by Sodoma, not to an illustrious artist—who no doubt would have hardly resisted the desire to redo as much as possible but, on the contrary, to a modest painter—already elderly—whose action would be limited to the indispensable" [2]. The second one, carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, is documented by an inscription on one of the walls of the room: "Vito Mameli restored in May 1915" whose work remained a "thick dark mixture painted with glue", which the Istituto Centrale del Restauro (ICR) was called to remedy in the 1970s, as can be seen from the technical report attached to the cost report no. 4 of 1 February 1974 signed by the restorer Paolo Mora, which provided for "consolidation, cleaning and restoration of the frescoes by Sodoma and other 16th century artists" and referred to the "implementation of the work plan prepared for the restoration of the entire pictorial decoration of the Villa" [3]. the technical report attached to the cost report no. 4 of 1 February 1974 signed by the restorer Paolo Mora, which provided for "consolidation, cleaning and restoration of the frescoes by Sodoma and other 16th century artists" and referred to the "implementation of the work plan prepared for the restoration of the entire pictorial decoration of the Villa" [3]. For this reason, the non-invasive investigations of the east wall depicting the *Darius family before Alexander* and on the north one depicting *Alexander meeting his new bride-to-be Roxane* were limited to the supposed original parts and were compared with the results emerged from the third wall, the west one, showing the *Taming of Bucephalus* by an unknown artist, trying to chronologically locate such fresco, in order to establish whether it was coeval to the other two. A set of non-invasive optical spectroscopic analyses, including Visible Reflectance (Vis-R) portable Raman and Reflectance Infrared Spectroscopy (MIR), have been used in a multi-technique approach, widely used and well-established in the last decade [4,5] for the individuation of painting materials by refining and unravelling the information about chemical elements from X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), making possible the comparison among the pigments of the three walls and even disclosing some peculiarities of the execution technique.

whose hand. Taking advantage of an imminent restoration campaign involving the northern and eastern walls, the non-invasive analyses were also extended to the *Taming of Bucephalus,* the west wall*,* which was never investigated before, aiming to collect information about its painting material to be compared with the other two walls of certain authorship in order to establish the epoch of this fresco. It is important to highlight that both the north and the east wall underwent many restorations, three of them documented. The first restoration dates back to 1870, when the Duke of Ripalta, shortly after buying the Villa in emphyteusis [1], had these murals restored, adopting as a programmatic choice to "entrust the restoration of the frescoes by Sodoma, not to an illustrious artist—who no doubt would have hardly resisted the desire to redo as much as possible but, on the contrary, to a modest painter—already elderly—whose action would be limited to the indispensable" [2]. The second one, carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, is documented by an inscription on one of the walls of the room: "Vito Mameli restored in May 1915" whose work remained a "thick dark mixture painted with glue", which the Istituto Centrale del Restauro (ICR) was called to remedy in the 1970s, as can be seen from

*Heritage* **2021**, *4* FOR PEER REVIEW 2

**Figure 1.** The *Darius family before Alexander* Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, north wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina.

For this reason, the non-invasive investigations of the east wall depicting the *Darius family before Alexander* and on the north one depicting *Alexander meeting his new brideto-be Roxane* were limited to the supposed original parts and were compared with the results emerged from the third wall, the west one, showing the *Taming of Bucephalus* by an unknown artist, trying to chronologically locate such fresco, in order to establish whether it was coeval to the other two.

A set of non-invasive optical spectroscopic analyses, including Visible Reflectance (Vis-R) portable Raman and Reflectance Infrared Spectroscopy (MIR), have been used in a multi-technique approach, widely used and well-established in the last decade [4,5] for the individuation of painting materials by refining and unravelling the information

about chemical elements from X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), making possible the comparison among the pigments of the three walls and even disclosing some peculiarities of the execution technique. **Figure 1.** The *Darius family before Alexander* Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma*,* 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, north wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina. **Figure 1.** The *Darius family before Alexander* Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma*,* 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, north wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of

*Heritage* **2021**, *4* FOR PEER REVIEW 3

*Heritage* **2021**, *4* FOR PEER REVIEW 3

**Figure 2.** *Alexander meeting his new bride-to-be Roxane*. Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, east wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina. **Figure 2.** *Alexander meeting his new bride-to-be Roxane*. Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, east wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina. **Figure 2.** *Alexander meeting his new bride-to-be Roxane*. Fresco by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, 1519. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, east wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina.

west wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina. **Figure 3.** *Taming of Bucephalus*. Unknown author and date. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, west wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina. **Figure 3.** *Taming of Bucephalus*. Unknown author and date. Alexander and Roxane's wedding room, west wall. Villa Farnesina, Rome. Courtesy of Archivio Villa Farnesina.
