Sala dei Cento Giorni

In the Sala dei Cento Giorni, Vasari and his assistants work in an elaborate and fanciful manner.

The narrative unfolds within an unusual illusionist space flooded with allegoric ornamentation and further by numerous figures in painted architecture surrounded by simulated sculpture.

The gestures and expressions of the figures are extravagant and exaggerated in a courtly manner, according to the Maniera style of the mid-Cinquecento.

The wall is not considered as a painted two-dimensional surface, but rather as a plastic, architectural structure in which imaginary and real space can expand and contract as one.

The upper part contains at each end a portrait bust of an ancient emperor framed by winged Ignudi or allegories of Victory.

In the center of this upper zone, seated female figures framed by the wooden corbels present an escutcheon.

The lower and upper parts are separated by two broken pediments at the ends of the wall (where the ancient busts rest) and by the architrave running between them.

Vasari creates a new, large-scale device by using illusionistically painted steps extending from the center of the lower zone to the actual physical floor.

It is, in fact, the beginning of a formalized, complex painting program that is to undergo further elaboration in the decorative cycles of the Palazzo Vecchio.