Ceiling Oculus

Ludovico Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, made his living hiring out his army to Milan and Venice, and the room Mantegna painted for him between 1465 and 1474 did three jobs at once. It was the marquis's bedchamber, the room where he sat with his family and closest courtiers, and the room important visitors were brought to. Its name, the bridal chamber, came later. The people who used it called it the camera picta, the painted room, and the painted dedication inside is dated June 1474.

Mantegna treated the flat vault as if it swelled into a dome and opened at the top, about 2.7 metres across, onto ordinary daylight. Putti climb through the balustrade that rings the opening, and women of the household lean over the rail and look down into the room. Correggio was still working out of this ceiling in Parma 50 years later, and the Baroque after him. A tub of plants sits on the rim of the opening, balanced on a pole laid across the gap, directly above whoever is standing below.