Medici Riccardi Palace, Gallery of Mirrors (or Room Luca Giordano): “Jupiter and the apotheosis of the Medici”, detail of the vault.Frescoes by Luca Giordano, 1682 - 1685.The scene is placed in the centre of the vault. It shows Jupiter on the high summit of a mountain of clouds, surrounded by six members of the Medici family. Here Ferdinand II is recognizable (central character with the club and the lion at his feet, symbols of the Fortress). Even further down are Cosimo III, wrapped in a red cloak while tempering a red-hot iron in water (idealized portrait, in order to depict the Grand Duke as the personification of Temperance), and his son Gian Gastone (on the left). All these personalities are characterized by the presence of a star on their heads which symbolizes the Medici satellites, i.e. those that Galileo Galilei discovered in 1610 and dedicated to the Florentine grand ducal family.
