View of the Sala dell'Udienza del Granduca

interior

The architectonical elements of quadratura, or trompe-l'oeil, decoration provide the grand duke's Private Audience Hall with startling illusionistic effects. On its rear wall Mitelli painted a grand double staircase that visually enlarges the actual size of the room through a deceptive perspectival device. The figure of a court official, painted by Mitelli's partner Angelo Michele Colonna (c.

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View of the Sala dell'Udienza del Granduca

About the Artist

Agostino Mitelli

1609 – 1660

Italian painter. He and his collaborator Angelo Michele Colonna are renowned as pre-eminent exponents of quadratura, the painting of illusionistic architectural perspectives. They learnt this art from Girolamo Curti (1575-1632), who had made a speciality of it in Bologna. The two artists created a range of ceiling enframements and decorative ensembles that were architecturally the most unified and rational of their time. This achievement, recognized as the 'Bolognese style', was widely applauded and imitated until the advent of Neo-classicism, when it was criticized for excesses and violations of architectural probity.

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