GIULIO ROMANO
(b. ca. 1499, Roma, d. 1546, Mantova)

View of the Sala dei Giganti (north wall)

1532-34
Fresco
Sala dei Giganti, Palazzo del Tè, Mantua

In this fresco, beneath the gods, in a melodramatic representation the giants tumble to earth, seeming to destroy the walls around them that pretended to be the actual walls of the room, thus threatening the merely human-sized spectator within the space.

The figure above the door in the centre is a variation of Michelangelo's Jonah in the Sistine Chapel.