Sala delle Asse

Step into a castle hall and find yourself under a forest. Leonardo da Vinci turned the vaulted ceiling of this Milanese room into a living canopy of mulberry trees.

The story behind the painting

In 1498 Leonardo da Vinci was working in Milan for Duke Ludovico Sforza, known as il Moro. A letter dated 21 April 1498 from the duke's chancellor, Gualtiero Bascapè, reports that Master Leonardo promised to finish decorating a large room in the Castello Sforzesco by September; two days later he wrote that the large chamber was free of its boards. The room's name, Sala delle Asse, means the room of the wooden planks. Experts disagree on its origin: some say the walls had long been covered in planks, others that the name comes from a misreading of that very letter. Within a year history intervened. In 1499 French troops under Louis XII took Milan and Ludovico fled, leaving Leonardo's forest to an uncertain future.

What to look for

The room is a square of about fifteen by fifteen metres, painted in tempera on plaster. Look up. Tree trunks rise along the walls and burst into a vaulted canopy of branches, leaves and berries, as if you stood in open air rather than inside a fortress. The written account counts the trees differently, sixteen in one passage and eighteen mulberry trees in another, so the exact number is itself a small puzzle. Trace the rope that weaves through the branches; restoration committee member Pietro Marani describes branches and knots all tangled together, bound by a long rope entwined with plant forms. Then look low on the walls for the monochrome drawings of roots and rocks, preparatory work recovered during recent restoration.

Meaning and intent

Art historian Rocky Ruggiero describes the decoration as creating the effect of a natural pergola, an architectural feature made of living growth. He suggests that Leonardo drew on all his scientific study of natural systems to build this masterful illusion of a grove of mulberry trees. Seen that way, the room is more than ornament: it is Leonardo's research into how plants grow, branch and knot, transformed into a space you can stand inside. The intertwining of nature and geometry, wild branches disciplined by an interlacing rope, reflects his lifelong fascination with order hidden in living things. The sources do not record a single stated programme for the design, so further symbolic readings should be treated with caution.

Legacy

The room's survival is almost a miracle. Under later Spanish, Austrian and other rulers the castle served military purposes, its walls were whitewashed, and memory of the painting was lost. In 1893, during architect Luca Beltrami's restoration of the castle, traces of paint were found beneath the white. A restoration by Ernesto Rusca, unveiled in 1902, revealed bright colours that puzzled critics used to the faded Last Supper. In the 1950s a second campaign toned the colours down to a more antique look, and experts still disagree about these interventions. A third restoration, launched in 2012, aims to halt damage from humidity and to uncover as much of Leonardo's original work as possible, recovering more preparatory drawings.

Did you know?

'Asse' means planks in Italian, so the name means the room of the wooden planks.
A letter of 21 April 1498 records that Leonardo promised to finish the room by September.
The painting was whitewashed for centuries and rediscovered only in 1893.
A restoration begun in 2012 has recovered more of Leonardo's monochrome preparatory drawings.

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