Painting of a corridor

The picture shows the corridor leading to the rooms once occupied by St Ignatius Loyola (Camere di Sant’Ignazio) in the Casa Professa del Gesù in Rome. Here Pozzo created a perspective that made out of the small space with architectural irregularities a virtual gallery after the pattern of the Galleria Colonna in the Palazzo Colonna, Rome. Its figural program, with scenes from the life of St Ignatius, was so skillfully integrated into the scenographic architecture that one has the impression that this is in fact a monumental gallery. Only when one walks through it is the reality revealed.