View of the Sala dell'Udienza del Granduca

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. 1600-1687) is seen in the act of climbing the imaginary stairs, thus adding a sense of illusionary reality.

In the Palazzo Pitti commission the Colonna-Mitelli collaboration developed a successful model that the pair was able to translate to other situations. The best example of this is the painting, from a few years later, in the salone of the d’Este summer residence in Sassuolo, near Modena.