When I go to the Villa Borghese Museum with  my tourists I always suggest them to admire not only the works of art exhibited but also the halls that, with their frescoes, are real jewels. The room that houses the magnificent David by Bernini, for example, is also called the "Room of the Sun" due to the beautiful central fresco, painted by Francesco Caccianiga in the second half of the XVIII century, that tells us about one of the most disturbing and powerful myths of the whole Greek/roman mythology: the fall of Phaeton. Who was him?

He was the Apollo's son who, after having discovered thanks to his mother who was his true father, decided with determination to go to the heavenly palace of the God of the Sun, in order to know him. But, of course, he would like to really take his new role. Just because Phaeton didn't know anything about his real origins for his whole childhood, he decides to show to the father divine what really would have been capable. Arrived before the God of the Sun he asked to  his father to take the oath that would allow him to do whatever he would have required at that time. Apollo, unaware of the true intentions of the son, accepted. Phaethon, however, so pride asked to drive, at least once, the Chariot of the Sun! Request agent that Apollo, bound by an oath that not even a god could break it, could do nothing but comply. He perfectly  knows well that no mortal could ever to make one complete revolution of the Sun, and even for him, who is its guardian, is not easy. Warning Phaethon and trying to change his ideas Apollo told him everything about the dangers that Phaethon was going to face. But nothing convinced the young boy.

So Phaethon the next morning part driving the chariot drawn by four horses of fire, and as the only food they knew was the divine ambrosia. And immediately, after few time, Phaeton understood how he was not minimally able to tame them, losing control and causing total chaos! Ovid, for example, tells the story of how the sky went literally on fire, that the Ethiopians became dark-skinned for the contact with the Sun, which was going up and down the sky without having to follow a route accurately. Even Ovid says that the Nile, frightened by so much chaos, decided to hide, preventing anyone to know where he came from (a way to justify the fact that at the time do not know the source of the Nile). In short, a real mess, what Jupiter killed Phaeton with a lightning ("But at that moment, the [Jupiter] used the clouds to cover the earth, nor the rain that fell from the sky thundered, and hovered a fulmino the top on the right hand, launched it against the charioteer [Phaethon], hurling him from the chariot and from life, and with the fury of fire fire repressed").

A myth so powerful in the emotions, those of Apollo, who tried to convince the son, telling him about the fears that he has every time he must tame those four horses, as well as the anguish for the loss of her son due to Jupiter. Something that, looking up to heaven, after seeing the David by Bernini, can be taken away from you...