Reign of Comus (Lorenzo Costa)

The first paintings for the Studiolo were completed by Andrea Mantegna, and he appears to have started this painting, but it was completed by Costa between 1506 - 1511, after Mantegna's death, when Costa had been named court painter.

To the left of the foreground tree, a sitting Comus, the ruler of a land of bacchanals, with his head tilted looks at Venus.

In the center, Dionysus strokes the hair of a drunken maiden, identified as Nicaea.

[2] Meanwhile, to the right of an elaborate arch, Janus bifrons and Hermes shoo away poorly clothed figures from the enjoyments of Comus.

[3] The elaborate painting may have a moral justifying some of the virtues of reveling, or perhaps it is a melancholic work which exalts as virtuous, only Nicaea, the one character oblivious to the orgies around her.