Sistine Chapel ceiling reread the Old Testament while he was painting the ceiling, drawing his inspiration from the words of the scripture, rather than from the established traditions of sacral art. A total of 343 figures were painted on the ceiling. To reach the chapel's ceiling, Michelangelo designed his own scaffold, a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall near the top of the windows, rather than being built up from the floor. Mancinelli speculates that this was in order to cut the cost of timber. According to Michelangelo's pupil and biographer Ascanio Condivi, the brackets and frame
Illusionistic ceiling painting Sant'Ignazio, Rome. Illusionistic ceiling painting belongs to the general class of illusionism in art—art designed to create accurate representations of reality. Di sotto in sù (or "sotto in su"), which means "seen from below" or "from below, upward" in Italian, developed in late Quattrocento Italian Renaissance painting, notably in Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi in Mantua and in frescoes by Melozzo da Forlì. Italian terminology for this technique reflects the latter artist's influence and is called "prospettiva melozziana", or "Melozzo's perspective". Another notable use is by Antonio da Correggio in the Duomo of Parma, which foreshadows Baroque grandeur. The technique