Erotic scenes

In the fourteenth century, heated chambers in patrician houses that served as both bedroom and living room were often elaborately painted, but the standard decorations were trees, plants of all kinds, coats of arms, and imaginary patterned draperies. One rarely finds an actual narration of the sort appropriate, for example, even for a bridal chamber. Even more uncommon are cycles representing either episodes or whole narrative sequences from the lives of actual lovers as opposed to fictional ones. An example is in the Palazzo del Podestà in San Gimignano. Here the erotic scenes were executed in a vaulted room in a tower (in the Camera del Podestà), and they reflect the ideals and the way of life of a courtly society.