Il pontificato non vuol esser cercato, e chi lo cerca non lo trova
Paul III Farnese to Cardinal Alessandro FarneseThe Massive Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola looms over its plain, a mute witness to the former power of the family (fig. 1). The rocca was initiated by the first Cardinal Alessandro (Pope Paul III) and fully and magnificently developed by the second Cardinal Alessandro, his grandson. Inside, its decoration boasts of family deeds and silently eliminates family failures. Much of the decoration was minutely described by contemporaries, and documents and decoration have been carefully studied by modern scholars. However one of the major halls, that which evoked the greatest contemporary admiration, the Sala della Cosmografia, can profitably be looked at again (figs. 2-4, 8, 9).