It is about Dionysus (Bacchus in Roman mythology) , son of Zeus and Semele, the mythical God of the wine and theatre, also considered promoter of Agriculture and Vegetation. In the left picture we can see in the background a wooded landscape where some fauns live, when the new-born Dionysus is given by the god Hermes, requested by Zeus, to the nymphs; they would look after him protecting him from the dangers that lied ahead of him. In the upper right angle, Zeus and the deceived and vengeful wife Hera. The composition of this relief is inspired in the picture of the French painter L. De la Hire; its triangular structuring can be noticed. The central picture represents a Bacanal, where characters, typical of this kind of representations can be seen; a drunk Silenus who can still stay up thanks to a donkey, comes in from the left , followed by a a figure that looks like Bacchus himself. Other characters are dancing and drinking ; we can also see Fauno Baberini, who sleeps leaning on a tree trunk, in the upper right part. The composition is arranged in order to highlight the movement of the figures, and even the people of the foreground are falling after their orgiastic excesses. The theme of the bacanal has been treated by artists of all times. The right picture of the altarpiece represents the finding of Adriana by Dionysus and his companions; abandoned by Theseus at the beach, she sleeps leaning on the knees of Hipnos, the God of dreams. Dionysus falls in love with her and makes her his wife; not in vain, an Eros flutters in the scene. Like in the left picture, the triangle orders the composition here. The lower pictures carved with less relief , represent from left to right the theme of the wine, a bachic procession and the theme of the theatre, representations in which we can recognize some figures of old reliefs .The ornamental carvings of the frame , volutes, tapered pilasters, masks, etc., have a closed relation with the Dionysian matter.
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