[Apotheose of Aeneas}

Large engraving of the a portion of the fresco depicting the Greek myth of Apotheose of Aeneas made by Pietro Da Cortona in 1651. Pope Innocent X had built the imposing family palace at Piazza Navona, Rome and commissioned the frescoes of the Galleria which were painted by Pietro da Cortona. 

Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee the fall of Troy, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy and became progenitors of Romans. The Aeneads included Aeneas’s trumpeter Misenus, his father Anchises, his friends Achates, Sergestus, and Acmon, the healer Iapyx, the helmsman Palinurus, and his son Ascanius. He carried with him the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods of Troy, and transplanted them to Italy.