ABSTRACT
In 1608, emerging Bolognese artist Guido Reni frescoed the ceilings of two rooms in a newly constructed wing of the Vatican Palace. The upper room, the Sala delle Dame, features three Gospel scenes, while the lower room, the Sala di Sansone, has three episodes from the life of the eponymous Old Testament hero, Samson. Built for Paul V (r. 1605–1621), the two spaces were reception rooms for the pope and the cardinal nephew, Scipione Borghese, respectively. This chapter argues for their significance as a programmatic justification of nepotism as good governance. In the alter ego of Samson, Scipione Borghese is represented as the militant, protective arm of the church, given strength through dutiful obedience to God and the pope. Through an analysis of the bond of adoption between Paul V and Scipione Borghese and the iconographic, theological, and typological bases of the Vatican imagery, this chapter establishes Reni’s frescoes as a foundational statement of the ideology of nepotism in Counter-Reformation Rome.
