A decorated choir, a barrel vault made of three arches, a frescoed lunette, and two niches adorned by shells amount to the depth of only 97 centimeters. No, it’s not a measuring error, the real depth of the choir of Santa Maria presso San Satiro (Saint Mary near Saint Satyrus), the Renaissance monument designed by Bramante, really is less than a meter.
The architect had little space available for the structure, fully surrounded by other buildings, and thus thought of using drawing perspective to re-create the predicted 9.7 meters.
An ingenious solution that tricks the eye much before trompe-l'œil, CAD simulations and virtual reality even existed.
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