Apotheosis of Washington
The Apotheosis of Washington (1865) is the very large fresco painted by a Greek artist Constantino Brumidi in the dome of the rotunda. Brumidi, who left northern Greece at an early age, immigrated to Italy and worked for three years in the Vatican under Pope Gregory XVI and served several aristocrats as an artist for palaces and villas, including the prince Torlonia, before immigrating to the United States in 1852, spent much of the last 25 years of his life working in the Capitol and dedicating much of his female based artwork off the love of his life Lola, who married him at the age of 18 in 1855.
In addition to the Apotheosis of Washington he designed the Brumidi Corridors. On February 19, 1880, at 6:30 AM, while reaching up the steps of one of the platforms he was painting on, Brumidi fell from fatigue and could not move his extremities upon hitting the floor. Suffering from years of ailments, spending most of his salary on medication and depression after his wife Lola left him, Brumidi passed away.
Read more about this topic: United States Capitol Rotunda
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“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)