[1] The painting is the first major depiction of the subject of the "Feast of the Gods" in Renaissance art, which was to remain in currency until the end of Northern Mannerism over a century later.

The subjects had been chosen by 1511, by the Renaissance humanist Mario Equicola, then working for the Duke's sister Isabella d'Este, and instructions apparently including some sketches were sent to the artists.

[7] The three surviving Titians painted for the room are Bacchus and Ariadne (National Gallery, London), The Bacchanal of the Andrians, and The Worship of Venus (both Prado, Madrid).

[9] Bellini died in 1516, soon after completing the painting, and some years later Dosso Dossi and perhaps Titian modified the landscape on the left to match it to his The Bacchanal of the Andrians (1518–1523), also in Alfonso's Camerino, adding the rocky hill behind the figures and the brighter foliage on a tree at the right.

Another depiction of this rare subject in a Venetian print of 1510 has a very similar pose for Lotis but places much greater emphasis on the erotic nature of the story, including Priapus's outsize penis, here only a hint under the drapery.

[11] Another suggestion is that the couple in the center, the male with his hand between the female's thighs, are a bridal pair, as shown by their intimacy and the quince she is holding, a fruit recommended for brides to increase their sexual appetites.

He had previously been reluctant to paint mythological stories, wriggling out of a commission from Isabella d'Este, Alfonso's sister, in 1501–04 (she had to be content with a Nativity at a lower price than she had offered for a storia).

The room as a whole "constituted a large novelty in the European imagination", as the paintings "established in visual form the picture of the ideal, mythical Mediterranean idyll, made up of charming people enjoying themselves in a gorgeous landscape" and "presented figures from classical mythology as laymen engaged in lay pursuits of love and war, embodied in the new realistic naturalism which had only just been developed... Secular life came into high art by the back door as the representation of the stories of the classical gods, in whom no one believed, but who, since they were not real gods, could be placed in embarrassing situations.

[20] All three painters, Bellini, Dosso and Titian employed the pigments available in that time period such as natural ultramarine, lead-tin-yellow, malachite, verdigris and vermilion.