Sala delle Asse

The Sala delle Asse (In English: 'room of the wooden planks'), is a large room in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the location of a painting in tempera on plaster by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498.^[1] Its walls and vaulted ceiling are decorated with "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks" and a canopy created by sixteen trees.

The walls and ceiling are painted with a trompe-l'œil scheme depicting trunks, leaves, fruits, and knots, as if it was in the open air and not within a castle.^[2] Art historian Rocky Ruggiero describes the decoration of the square, fifteen-by-fifteen-meters room as creating the effect of a natural pergola as an architectural feature.^[3] Ruggiero suggests that Leonardo drew upon all of his scientific research into natural systems as he painted the masterful illusion that resembles a grove of mulberry trees.