or is a palace in the suburbs of
Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. It is a fine example of the
mannerist
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ita ...
style of
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
, and the acknowledged masterpiece of
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...
. Although formed in Italian, the usual name in English of Palazzo del Te is not that now used by Italians. The official modern name, and by far the most common name in Italian, is . The English name arises because the art historian,
Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
, calls it the "",
[ - all quotations from Vasari's "Vita di Giulio Romano, Pittore"] and English-speaking writers, especially art historians, still most often call it "Palazzo del Te".
History
Palazzo del Te was constructed 1524–34 for
Federico II Gonzaga
Federico II of Gonzaga (17 May 1500 – 28 August 1540) was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua (first as Marquis, later as Duke) from 1519 until his death. He was also Marquis of Montferrat from 1536.
Biography
Federico was son of Francesc ...
, Marquess of Mantua, as a
palace of leisure. The site chosen was that of the family stables at , on the edge of the
marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...
es just outside Mantua's city walls. The name comes from , the grove that once grew on what was then an islet in the marshlands around the core of the city.
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...
, a pupil of
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...
, was commissioned to design the building. The shell of the palazzo, erected within eighteen months, is basically a square house containing a
cloister
A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...
ed courtyard. A formal garden complemented the house, enclosed by colonnaded outbuildings ending in a semicircular colonnade known as the
Exedra
An exedra (plural: exedras or exedrae) is a semicircular architectural recess or platform, sometimes crowned by a semi-dome, and either set into a building's façade or free-standing. The original Greek sense (''ἐξέδρα'', a seat out of d ...
or .
Once the shell of the building was completed, for ten years a team of plasterers, carvers, and fresco painters laboured until barely a surface in any of the loggias or salons remained undecorated. Under Romano's direction, local decorative painters such as
Benedetto Pagni
Benedetto Pagni (died 1578) was an Italian painter of the Mannerist period, active mainly in Mantua and Pescia. He was part of the team of assistants of Giulio Romano in the decoration of the Palazzo del Te
or is a palace in the suburbs of Ma ...
and
Rinaldo Mantovano worked extensively on the frescos.
In July 1630, during the
War of the Mantuan Succession
The War of the Mantuan Succession (1628–1631) was a related conflict of the Thirty Years' War, caused by the death in December 1627 of Vincenzo II, last male heir in the direct line of the House of Gonzaga and ruler of the duchies of Mantua ...
(1628–31),
Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
and the palace were sacked over three days by an
Imperial army of 36,000
Landsknecht
The (singular: , ), also rendered as Landsknechts or Lansquenets, were Germanic mercenaries used in pike and shot formations during the early modern period. Consisting predominantly of pikemen and supporting foot soldiers, their front lin ...
mercenaries. The remaining populace fell victim to one of the worst
plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pe ...
s in history that the invaders had brought with them. The Palazzo was looted from top to bottom and remained an empty shell with nymphs, gods, goddesses, and giants adorning the walls of the empty, echoing rooms.
Description
Like the
Villa Farnesina
The Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy.
Description
The villa was built for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and the treasurer of Pope Julius II. B ...
in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, the suburban location allowed for a mixing of both palace and
villa
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...
architecture. The four exterior façades have flat pilasters against
rusticated walls, the
fenestration
Fenestration may refer to:
* Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building
* Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology
* Fenestration, holes in the rudder
A rudder is a primar ...
indicating that the is the ground floor, with a secondary floor above. The East façade differs from the other three by having
Palladian
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
motifs on its pilaster and an open
loggia
In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...
at its centre rather than an arch to the courtyard. The facades are not so symmetrical as they appear and the spans between the columns are irregular. The centers of the North and South facades are pierced by two-storey arches without portico or pediment, simply a covered way leading to the interior courtyard.
Few windows overlook the inner courtyard (""); the colonnaded walls are decorated on all sides by deep niches and blind windows, and the intervening surfaces are spattered by (broken and blemished plaster) giving life and depth to the surfaces.
The frescoes are the most remarkable feature of the Palazzo. The subjects range from
Olympian banquets in the and stylised
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
s in the to the most unusual of all —
giants
A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore.
Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to:
Mythology and religion
*Giants (Greek mythology)
*Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...
and
grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
s wreaking havoc, fury, and ruin around the walls of the .
These magnificent rooms, once furnished to complement the ducal court of the
Gonzaga family, saw many of the most illustrious figures of their era entertained, such as the
Emperor Charles V, who, when visiting in 1530, elevated his host Federico II of Gonzaga from Marquess to Duke of Mantua.
One of the most evocative parts of the lost era of the palazzo is the , a small suite of intimate rooms arranged around a
grotto and (covered balcony) where
courtier
A courtier () is a person who attends the royal court of a monarch or other royalty. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the official ...
s once bathed in the small
cascade that splashed over the
pebbles and
shells encrusted in the floor and walls.
Part of the Palazzo today houses the , endowed by the publisher
Arnoldo Mondadori. It contains a collection of
Mesopotamian art.
Gallery
Image:Modellino in legno di Palazzo Te in Palazzo Te - Mantova (II).jpg, Model
Image:Modellino in legno di Palazzo Te in Palazzo Te - Mantova.jpg, Model
Image:39PalazzoTe.jpg, Loggia
Image:Palazzo Te Mantova 3.jpg, Internal façade
Image:Palazzo te giardino segreto.jpg, Casino della Grotta
Image:Palazzo Te Mantova 2.jpg, " Serlian window" archway
Image:Palazzo Te Mantova 1.jpg, featuring "dropped" triglyphs
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the tri glyphs on a Doric frieze ar ...
File:Gigants1.jpg, The Fall of the Giants ()
File:Sala dei Cavalli.jpg, Hall of Horses ()
File:Quadrato centrale e 4 semiottagoni.png, Quadrato
File:Palazzo te, camerino di venere, con grottesche e toeletta di venere di girolamo da pontremoli, 1534.jpg
File:Palazzo te, camerino delle grottesche, di andrea de conti e luca da faenza, 1533, 01.jpg
References
*
Summerson, John, ''
The Classical Language of Architecture
''The Classical Language of Architecture'' is a 1965 compilation of six BBC radio lectures given in 1963 by Sir John Summerson. It is a 60-some page discussion of the origins of classical architecture and its movement through Antiquity, Renaissan ...
'', 1980 edition,
Thames and Hudson
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...
''World of Art'' series,
External links
Official websiteMantua tourist guidePalazzo Teat Google Arts & Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palazzo Del Te
Giulio Romano buildings
Houses completed in 1534
Te
Renaissance architecture in Mantua
Fresco paintings in Mantua
Mannerist architecture in Italy
Historic house museums in Italy
Egyptological collections in Italy
Numismatic museums in Italy
Art museums and galleries in Lombardy
1534 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire
Museums in Mantua
Gonzaga residences
Loggias in Italy