This article advances the hypothesis that Diego Velázquez, during his first trip to Italy (1629-1631), may have seen the Carracci fresco cycle Stories of the Founding of Rome at Palazzo Magnani in Bologna.
Biographical sources describing the Sevillian painter's Italian journey – namely Francisco Pacheco and Antonio Palomino – are carefully examined to find evidence of a stay in Bologna that may have been longer than traditionally assumed. The author explores a possible circumstance that might have granted Velázquez access to Palazzo Magnani, where the celebrated Carracci frieze could have inspired formal elements and compositional syntax in the two canvases he painted during those months: Vulcan's Forge and Joseph's Tunic.