Janus Giving the Keys of the Temple to Jupiter

Giuseppe Isola (Genoa, 1808–1893)
Central ceiling – Janus Giving the Keys of the Temple to Jupiter
tempera,1843

Giuseppe Frascheri (Savona 1809-1886)
East ceiling – The Genoese Ambassadors Paying Homage to Charles Emmanuel I on his Accession
West ceiling – Charles Emmanuel I Listening to the Entreaties of his Subjects
tempera,1843
The Audience Chamber

The centre of the scene is occupied by Janus handing a massive bronze key to Jupiter as an act of submission. In accordance with the traditional iconography, the former is crowned and has two faces, one of an old bearded monarch and the other of a proud young man, while the father of the gods holds a lightning bolt and sits on a throne of clouds beside an eagle. Once again, the subject lent itself to political interpretation as representing the submission of Genoa, identified since the Middle Ages with the two-faced divinity, to Charles Albert of Sardinia, the new monarch of the Liguria region, who accepts it and guarantees peace as personified by the female figure with olive branch and cornucopia on the right of Janus. This reading fits in with the themes of the Restoration period and is borne out by the presence of the two monochrome friezes framing the central panel, in which Giuseppe Frascheri depicted the Genoese ambassadors paying homage to Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562–1630) on his accession to the throne and his subjects asking for justice.