Medici Riccardi Palace, Gallery of Mirrors (or Room Luca Giordano), detail of the vault: "the Cave of Eternity and the Birth of Man".Frescoes by Luca Giordano; 1682 - 1685.A group of divinities attends the birth of man, symbolized by the newborn held in the hand of the two-faced god Janus at the centre of the scene. The whole group is surrounded by an ouroboros (snake biting its own tail), symbol of Eternity, while in the background inside a cave is Time (represented by the figure of an elderly winged man with an hourglass in his hand). In front of them is a veiled goddess (perhaps Necessity) who offers a rod to Fortune (portrayed blindfolded) and a golden sphere to Nature (from which milk flows from the breast). Next to the god Janus are the three Fates with the thread (to be worked) of human life.
