Sala dei Giganti (Room of the Giants)

1532–35

Fresco on walls and vault · Palazzo Te, Mantua

A room in Federico II Gonzaga’s pleasure villa where fresco covers every wall and the vault without a break, so visitors stand inside the collapse of the Giants. Giulio designed it; his assistant Rinaldo Mantovano painted much of it.

Look up: Jupiter hurls thunderbolts from the vault, ringed by alarmed gods.
On the walls Giants are crushed by falling columns, rocks and a collapsing temple.
Monkeys on one wall come from a period misreading of Ovid.
Scaffolding came down for Emperor Charles V’s visit in 1532 while parts were unfinished; the room is often read as flattering him.
Restored in the 1780s and again in 1988.

The Giants, children of Earth, attacked Olympus and were destroyed by Jupiter’s thunderbolts. Ovid’s version of the story is the painting’s source.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain