Camera degli Sposi

The ceiling of Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi in the Ducal Palace at Mantua, painted for Ludovico III Gonzaga between 1465 and 1474. Painted ribs and carved-looking medallions frame a fake opening to the sky, where cherubs and women lean over a balustrade and peer down at you, beside a potted plant that seems ready to fall. It is one of the great tricks in Italian art: look up from the middle of the room and the flat vault seems to open. Its illusions paved the way for the grand wall and ceiling painting of the next century.