This picture, painted in fresco, was part of a series of eight which decorated the walls of the palace belonging to Pandolfo Petrucci, the ruler of Siena; three survive in our collection. He commissioned them to celebrate the marriage of his son to Pope Pius III’s niece.
This panel shows an episode taken from the Odyssey, an epic poem attributed to Homer which follows the Greek hero Odysseus as he travels home from the Trojan War. His wife Penelope, famous for her fidelity, is shown at her loom: during Odysseus’ 20-year absence she was pursued by other men – seen here queuing up for her attention – but vowed that she would only remarry once her weaving was complete. She ensured that it never was by unpicking her daily labour each night. The central figure who raises his finger seems to be talking to Penelope (he has sometimes been identified as her son Telemachus). He and the suitors wear colourful clothes that look expensive; some have fashionable blond curls and one poses nonchalantly with a falcon, perhaps to show off his hunting skills.
The man entering the room looks different to the other suitors. He carries a staff, often a symbol of a traveller, and his red and blue outfit mirrors the colours of the bow and arrows which hang above Penelope’s head. The association is most likely deliberate: Homer tells us that when Odysseus returned he disguised himself as a beggar and, taking his rivals by surprise, drew his bow and arrows and killed them one by one.
Other episodes in the poem are depicted in the distance. We see Odysseus’ ship, which is decorated with the blue and gold Petrucci coat of arms. The mermaids in the water are the sirens. Homer describes how Odysseus asked his sailors to strap him to the mast as they passed by so that he could listen to their enchanting song without falling victim to its curse – it famously lured sailors to wreck their boats. Sailors in a small boat nearby dive into the water, maddened by the beauty of the singing. On the coast we see Odysseus meeting the witch Circe. They are surrounded by pigs, painted to look like the local Sienese breed, the Cinta Senese, which have a white stripe down their backs. The pigs are in fact humans who have been transformed by Circe’s sorcery.
The choice of subject was relevant for the celebration of a marriage: fidelity and chastity were key virtues for Renaissance women and Penelope was the exemplary bride. It probably had meaning for Pandolfo too, for other reasons: like Odysseus, he also experienced exile and homecoming, having been banished from his hometown of Siena, accused of political intrigue, in the late 1490s.
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