Ceiling

CEILING. - An architectural element tending to mask the overlying roof structures or, more simply, the sky of a room. What interests us here is, naturally, the aesthetic function of this element, which, in the various historical periods, has undergone various forms of decoration, whether for this purpose the beams of the floor were used to obtain the so-called coffered or paneled ceiling, or whether the decoration of the flat surface of the ceiling was covered with paintings.

A special type of decoration, therefore, which nevertheless falls within the history of wood carving and stucco as regards particularly the first type, and within that of painting proper as regards the second type, and for which one customarily distinguishes between the ceiling and the decorated vault. Works to which great importance was always given; and it is known, because of the rich ceiling that

Among the most ancient surviving works, mention is made of the s. of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (ca. 1149), in which "among the Muslim ornaments stand figures of profane bliss, raising their cups, seated in the Eastern manner" (Toesca): painted s. panels, of Byzantine style, also remain in the Chapter of S. Niccolò in Treviso. This is a type that has never ceased to enjoy great fortune, especially in Sicily, and one will recall, for later periods, that of the Palazzo Chiaramonte in Palermo by Simone di Corleone and Cecco di Naro (1377-80), of a fantastic decorative richness, with profane subjects alternating with sacred ones. This is, moreover, one of the few surviving examples of a decorated s. of a medieval private house, while examples are not lacking for religious buildings, such as the s. with decorated beams (dat. 1334) of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna. Scanty in artistic importance, on the other hand, seem to have been, by the very spirit of art that generated them, the s. of the Gothic period, during which recourse to vaulted coverings became more frequent.

A notable revival occurred during the Renaissance, the classical period of the great carved and gilded and also painted s., in which artists such as the Lendinara, Giuliano da Sangallo (who together with Domenico del Tasso left the very rich s. of the Sala del Dugento in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence), his brother Benedetto, Matteo Cividali, Antonio da Sangallo (s. of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome), Giulio Romano (Palazzo del Te, in Mantua), the Primaticcio (apartment of Troy in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua) made their mark. Alongside these worked a whole legion of minor artists, of whom, unfortunately, only a few names remain (Giacomo Fiorentino in Urbino; Antonio Viani in Mantua; Michelangelo Leggi in Cortona; Giovanni Sega in Carpi and others). The art of the seventeenth century has left notable examples of wooden s., especially in Genoa, where the work of the Lucchese Gaspare Forzani is remembered; in Florence, where one will recall the s. of the church of the S.ma Annunziata (1664); in the Palazzo Reale of Turin, where Pietro and Bartolomeo Botto worked (in 1656 and 1660 respectively), Quirico Castelli

(1662-63), Pier Luca Bertolina (1658-59), Emanuele and Francesco Dugar, etc.

The type of flat painted s. is more difficult to separate clearly from decorated vaults, and for these one must go back to more remote times. Too famous, however, are the rich s. of this type executed during the Renaissance for them to need particular mention, and for which one would still have to repeat the names of famous artists, from Mantegna to Pinturicchio, to Raphael, to Giulio Romano, and then continue with the names of the major artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is instead appropriate to recall that in the Baroque period, along with the bold foreshortened visions realized by painters, there was a particular and natural revival of stucco decoration, as well as in wood (and it will suffice to mention the name of Serpotta), until "the tradition of solemn and powerful decorative inventions having by now been lost, that virtuosity exercised itself magnificently in the infinite resources of a soft and artificial grace" (A. Colasanti) - See pl. LVIII.

Gilberto Ronci