Sala delle Asse

This is not a canvas but a whole room. In 1498 Leonardo was working for Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, and he painted the vaulted ceiling of a tower chamber in the duke's castle to look like the underside of a living bower. Sixteen trees rise from the walls and their branches knit across the whole vault in a dense canopy, laced through with golden cords tied in intricate knots. The trees are mulberries, and that is a private joke made visible, the mulberry in Italian is moro, and il Moro was the duke's nickname. Leonardo never quite finished. In 1499 French troops took Milan, Ludovico fell, and Leonardo left the city in a hurry.