Places to see in ( Mantova - Italy ) Museo di Palazzo Ducale
Places to see in ( Mantova - Italy ) Museo di Palazzo Ducale
The Palazzo Ducale di Mantova is a group of buildings in Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, built between the 14th and the 17th century mainly by the noble family of Gonzaga as their royal residence in the capital of their Duchy. The buildings are connected by corridors and galleries and are enriched by inner courts and wide gardens. The complex includes some 500 rooms and occupies an area of c. 34,000 m². Although most famous for Mantegna's frescos in the Camera degli Sposi (Wedding Room), they have many other very significant architectural and painted elements.
The Gonzaga family lived in the palace from 1328 to 1707, when the dynasty died out. Subsequently, the buildings saw a sharp decline, which was halted in the 20th century with a continuing process of restoration and the designation of the area as museum. In 1998, a hidden room was discovered by Palace scholars, led by musicologist Paula Bezzutti. The room is thought to have been used for performances of Monteverdi's music in the late 16th century.
The entrance of the palace is from Piazza Sordello, onto which the most ancient buildings, the Palazzo del Capitano and the Magna Domus, open. They formed the original nucleus of the so-called Corte Vecchia. The Palazzo del Capitano (Captain's Palace) was built in the late 13th century by the Captain of the People Guido Buonacolsi (whose family ruled Mantua from 1271 to 1328). Initially built on two floors and separated from the Magna Domus (Latin: Big House) by an alley, in the early 14th century it received a further floor and was united to the Magna Domus by a large façade with a portico. The additional floor consists of a huge hall (67x15 m), known as Hall of the Weapon Room of Hall of Diet, as it housed the Diet of Mantua in 1459.
The monumental Scalone delle Duchesse (Duchesses' Staircase), built in the 17th century and renovated in 1779 by Paolo Pozzo, leads to the Room of the Morone, named after the 1494 canvas of the Veronese painter Domenico Morone, portraying the Expulsion of the Bonacolsi in 1328. In the noble floor of the Captain's Palace is the First Room of Guastalla, with a fresco frieze with portraits of the Gonzaga family, which once extended to the successive room, the Room of Pisanello, from the artist who, from 1433, painted a series of frescoes depicting a Tournament and other scenes, which were left unfinished. His commissioner, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, is portrayed in the paintings. The frescoes were rediscovered and restored in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1519 Isabella d'Este moved her residence from the Castle of St. George to this older sector of the Gonzaga palace, in the so-called Widow Apartment. Isabella's apartment included two wings now divided by the entrance to the Cortile d'Onore (Honour Court). The Grotto Wing housed the wooden furnitures and the paintings from her famous studiolo, commissioned from 1496 to 1505 to Mantegna (Parnassus and Triumph of the Virtues), Lorenzo Costa the Elder (Isabella d'Este in the Realm of Harmony and the Realm of Komos) and Perugino (Combat of Love and Chastity), as well as new ones by Correggio (Allegory of Vice and Allegory of Virtue).
The church of Santa Barbara, which had the role of Palace chapel (Basilica Palatina) for the Gonzagas, was built in 1562-1572 by Giovanni Battista Bertani, commissioned by Duke Guglielmo. It allowed for religious ceremonies, with some degree of independence from the papal hierarchy. It was outfitted with an Antegnati organ (1565) by one of the premier builders of Northern Italy. The organ was restored in 1995. The church has a central plan, with a square tiburium in the middle, followed by a raised semicircular presbytery covered by another tiburium, similar to the other one, and ending into a scenographic apse decorated with coffers. Under the presbytery is the crypt with an oval memorial. The bell tower has a square plan, and is topped by a small temple. Recently the remains of four dukes and other members of the Gonzaga family, including those of Guglielmo, were discovered in the church.
( Mantova - Italy ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting Mantova . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Mantova - Italy
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