View of the ceiling (detail)

The Sala del Mappamondo on the piano nobile was painted by Giovanni de’ Vecchi, assisted by Raffaellino da Reggio. The decoration of this room consists of monumental maps of the entire known world as well as the depiction of the forty-eight Ptolemaic constellations. The program was completed with portraits of the great discoverers Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Hernando Cort�s above the doors and windows of the room; personifications of the depicted countries and parts of the earth; and in a frieze, depictions of the celestial legends with which the ancients had explained the creation of the twelve signs of the zodiac.