The Sforza Castle (Italian: Castello Sforzesco [kasˈtɛllo sforˈtsesko]; Milanese: Castell Sforzesch [kasˈtɛl sfurˈsɛsk]) is a medieval fortification located in Milan, northern Italy. It was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest citadels in Europe. Extensively rebuilt by Luca Beltrami in 1891–1905, it now houses several of the city's museums and art collections.
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Castello Sforzesco in the context of Mediolanum
Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands, was originally an Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Roman city in Northern Italy.
The city was settled by a Celtic tribe belonging to the Insubres group and belonging to the Golasecca culture under the name Medhelanon around 590 BC, conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, who Latinized the name of the city into Mediolanum, and developed into a key centre of Western Christianity and informal capital of the Western Roman Empire. It declined under the ravages of the Gothic War, its capture by the Lombards in 569, and their decision to make Ticinum the capital of their Kingdom of Italy.
Castello Sforzesco in the context of 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. 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. 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. 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.