The Sala delle Asse (In English: 'room of the wooden planks'), is a large room in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the location of a painting in tempera on plaster by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498.[1] Its walls and vaulted ceiling are decorated with "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks" and a canopy created by sixteen trees.
The walls and ceiling are painted with a trompe-l'œil scheme depicting trunks, leaves, fruits, and knots, as if it was in the open air and not within a castle.[2] Art historian Rocky Ruggiero describes the decoration of the square, fifteen-by-fifteen-meters room as creating the effect of a natural pergola as an architectural feature.[3] Ruggiero suggests that Leonardo drew upon all of his scientific research into natural systems as he painted the masterful illusion that resembles a grove of mulberry trees.
- ^ Maria Teresa Fiorio (2005). "Tutto mi piace" : Leonardo e il castello. pp. 163–190. OCLC 887330367.
- ^ Costa, Patrizia (2006). The Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle in Milan. OCLC 670255517.
- ^ Ruggiero, Rocky, "Leonardo da Vinci's Sala delle Asse", Episode 142 of Making Art and History Come to Life, Rebuilding the Renaissance, aired October 6, 2021.