In front of a burning salamander, can one truly approach the secret of desire?
This is the mystery that envelops the meaning of the salamander carved into a fireplace in one of the rooms of Palazzo Grimani, discovered only a few years ago during restoration work.
The Palazzo, now a state museum, is a place where Giovanni Grimani’s passion for classical culture, mythology, and its symbols intertwines with his personal story and his family’s history.
Giovanni Grimani and the Palace
Purchased at the end of the fifteenth century by the future Doge Antonio Grimani, the palace was enriched with extraordinary collections of ancient statues, books, and coins thanks to his son, Cardinal Domenico Grimani, a humanist and refined collector.
It was, however, the determination of his grandson Giovanni, combined with his refined taste for art and his ability to bring together extraordinary talents, that transformed the palace into a true masterpiece of sixteenth-century humanism.
A man of vast culture and a restless spirit, Giovanni—though bishop of Ceneda and later patriarch of Aquileia—frequented intellectual circles often suspected of Lutheran sympathies. A charge of heresy initiated a long investigation by the Inquisition, which, although it ended in acquittal, cost him the cardinal’s hat. Giovanni experienced the missed appointment as a humiliation and an injustice.
After his uncle and two brothers had received the title, he believed he had full right to it as well.
Haunted for the rest of his life by the “devils” of the Holy Office, Giovanni transformed the family palace into the place of his vindication, where he could respond to the affront and reclaim his innocence.
He summoned leading artists of Roman Mannerism, such as Giovanni da Udine and Giuseppe Salviati, as if to answer Rome with the same artistic language then in vogue in the papal city.
In the mythological stories narrated through stuccoes and frescoes in the palace’s halls, the tales of men and gods come to life, along with the ancient and ever-persistent dynamics of guilt, punishment, and redemption.
The Salamander
It is precisely in the wing of the palace that Giovanni had decorated in the late 1530s, in the room once dedicated to Psyche, that an ancient flue was uncovered behind a wall. Once the debris was removed from the fireplace, a magnificent bas-relief appeared inside: a salamander that seems to dance among the flames that surround it.
One can imagine that, when the fireplace was lit, a spectacular scene would unfold: the creature shimmering in the fire and whirling among the flickering flames, like a shadow puppet escaped from its theatre. Yet, when the last log in the hearth had burned out, the salamander, moments earlier an ethereal body, would return to stone. Carved in matter and blackened by soot, the creature embodying desire remained there, a tangible presence, ready to burn again.
While the salamander at floor level served as a hypnotic focal point that captured the gaze of those present, on the ceiling shone Francesco Salviati’s sensual canvases depicting the stories of Cupid and Psyche, a reminder that, like humans, even the gods endure the torments of passion. The frescoes and the salamander formed a symbolic unicum: a tribute to the power of love, both human and divine, capable of overcoming even the harshest trials.The tale, narrated in The Metamorphoses by Apuleius, tells how Venus, Cupid’s capricious mother, did everything in her power to hinder the love between her son and the beautiful princess Psyche. Yet the young woman courageously faced relentless challenges, eventually achieving immortality and earning Venus’ consent to the marriage.
Thus, the theme of the tale, together with the salamander, celebrated the triumph of desire. The tenacity of passion and the ability to endure the harsh trials it sometimes imposes were ultimately sublimated into a divine force, capable of leading to the bliss of love and the union of human and divine.
Despite the thematic coherence of the room, the creature, with its many symbolic references, also evoked Giovanni Grimani’s moral strength and the unwavering faith that allowed him to withstand the accusations and persecution of the Inquisition.
The Metamorphoses
The themes of the two subsequent rooms, inspired by The Metamorphoses of Ovid, are dedicated to the nymph Callisto—transformed into a bear by Juno and then into a constellation by Jupiter—and to Marsyas, the reckless satyr who, after daring to challenge Apollo to a musical contest, was flayed as punishment for his hubris.
Once again, we witness the injustices of the gods: while Cupid and Psyche’s story ends in happiness after their suffering, the only way to save Callisto from her fate was to immortalize her among the stars. As for Marsyas, all that remains of him is a memory, preserved in the name of a river, born from the tears of pity shed by the woodland deities.
In mythology, metamorphosis becomes the instrument through which the gods attempt to redress the wrongs that, often out of vanity, they inflict upon lesser gods or mortals.
In the same way, Giovanni Grimani transformed the palace into a testament to his life, entrusting art with the task of restoring justice to his story and leaving it as a legacy for posterity.
Almost half a millennium later, walking through these halls, one can still hear his voice echoing—perhaps only a whisper of vindication, left in the care of history.
