Abstract

This work of art renders an unprecedented experience in the realms of illusion and immersion at the times of early Italian Renaissance through an appropriate array of pictorial and architectural elements within Baldassare Peruzzi’s “Sala delle Prospettive.” The ongoing predominance of the theory and practice perspective in both painting and architectural representation played a crucial role in its outcome. Thus, a balanced combination between mural painting and architecture bestowed a life-like illusion using a remarkable mastery in the art of perspective in this hall. This article will examine the interaction between the representational and architectural features with those of the viewer’s experience. How architecture had agency on both the physical and illusionistic scene, as well as the immersive experience of the visitor, shall also be discussed. It is precisely through the viewer’s visual experience, standpoint, and displacement within the room that the illusion is fulfilled, in the only Sala where this experience was given. This unveiled magic also set a distance between divinity and mortality, reminding the submissive passiveness of humans in front of gods.