Ceiling decoration

All that remains of Leonardo’s decorations in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan are some fragments in the Sala delle Asse which were, when discovered towards the end of the 19th century, restored in such a way that it is scarcely possible anymore to make out their original appearance. Leonardo’s plan was to cover the vaulted ceiling of the Sala with a complicated network of twigs and leaves growing from the tree trunks painted on the side walls, together with the blue of the sky in-between, create the illusion of a jumble of branches beneath an open sky.