Oil on canvas, 150cm by 130cm.
In the Bible, Jacob dreamed of a ladder, or stairway, between Earth and Heaven.
Cigoli was a friend of Galileo (1564-1642), the astronomer who first published the then heretical theory of heliocentricity.
Following Galileo’s observations, Cigoli painted a realistic, pitted depiction of the moon in a ceiling fresco in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, rather than the smooth orb normally depicted.
This marked the first known appearance in the visual arts of the effects of Galileo’s scientific discoveries.
