Imaging Heaven: The Art and Architecture of Illusion

Imaging Heaven is a visual narrative of frescoed church ceilings, photographed across Italy and Catholic Europe. Moving from the Proto-Renaissance to the Baroque, the book follows painters as they confront a fundamental problem: how to make the unseen realm of heaven perceptible amid profound shifts in cosmology, theology, and science.

Guided by threads of light, gesture, and illusion, the photographs reveal how painters moved from shadowless gold grounds rooted in Byzantine techniques to radiant, sophisticated illumination; turned hieratic icons into anatomically precise, emotionally charged bodies; and dissolved architectural boundaries with a photographic study of trompe-l’oeil, quadratura, and di sotto in sù effects that open ceilings onto boundless celestial space. Works by artists such as Correggio, Pozzo, and Tiepolo mark key moments in this ascent to Baroque theatricality.

Imaging Heaven situates these painted heavens within wider intellectual shifts—from Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology to Copernican and Galilean discoveries, and from Reformation turmoil to Counter-Reformation efforts to move and persuade believers. In this expanded universe, ceiling frescoes relocate the hierarchical cosmos onto church vaults, transforming churches into sacred theaters where radiant light, illusionistic depth, and emotionally expressive figures create immersive and engaging encounters with the divine, turning an upward glance into an experience of transcendence.