Palazzo del Te

The Palazzo del Te (also Palazzo Te ) is a pleasure palace in Mantua, Italy.

For an architectural layman who travels through the suburbs of Mantua, the Palazzo del Te, an isolated stand- square building, a simple and immediate impression on the basics of Mannerism in response to the architectural style of the High Renaissance. He breaks some rules of the classical Renaissance architecture, but at the same time appears to correspond to the basic rules as they are set by Leon Battista Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria a century earlier.

History

Federico II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, decided in 1524 the establishment of a pleasure palace or villa Suburbana. The planned location was at the Count's stables at Isola del Te, at the edge of the marshes outside the city walls of Mantua.

The awarded the construction architect was Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, who created the shell, a rectangular building around a courtyard, within 18 months. The system is completed by a garden, which is bordered by rows of columns in front of outbuildings, which are by a semicircle of columns, called Esedra completed.

Building

As for the Villa Farnesina even here the situation outside the city allowed the mixture of palaces and villas. The four exterior façades have flat pilasters before receding walls. The window work indicates that the Piano Nobile is on the ground floor, a first floor above. The eastern facade differs from the other three by Palladian motifs on its pillars and an open loggia in their midst. The facades are not as symmetrical as they look, the spacing of the columns are irregular. The center of the north and south facades is broken by two-storey arches without portico or pediment, and just a plain covered corridor leads to the courtyard.

Few windows overlook this courtyard, the Cortile; the column walls are provided on all sides with deep niches and blind windows, and the areas between them are provided with spezzato, who breathes life and depth to the surfaces.

After the shell was, only began the real work: ten years were cleaner, carvers, and fresco painter busy until barely a surface in the loggias and salons was still undecorated. Since no artist has been busy from the recognized front row, you can find here frescoes by Benedetto Pagni and Rinaldo Mantua, which are the most remarkable sight of the palace today. Topics range from an Olympic banquet in the Sala di Psyche over stylized horses in the Sala dei Cavalli to the Sala dei Giganti, with its giants and grotesques, the omitted pull through the mess on the walls.

These areas saw many of the most eminent persons of the time, including Emperor Charles V, who his host Federico II Gonzaga made ​​to the Duke during his visit in 1530.

One of the most charming parts of the past eras of the palazzo is the Casino della Grotta, a small series of private rooms around a grotto and the Logetta, a covered balcony on which the courtiers once bathed in a small cascade, which ran over pebbles and shells, which were embedded in the walls and ceilings.

The glory of the Palazzo del Te only lasted a century. 1630 were looted during the Mantuan Succession War and the conquest of the city by imperial troops Mantua and the palace. The remaining population was a victim of the worst plagues in history. The up down looted from above palace remained an empty shell - and in this state are its remarkable wall paintings all the more surprising, the nymphs, gods, goddesses and giants populate the walls of the empty echoing rooms.

In parts of the palace today the Museo Civico housed, which presents the following collections:

• The collection of Mesopotamian art by Ugo Sissa
• The collection of Egyptian art by Giuseppe Acerbi
• The donation of the Arnoldo Mondadori family with works by Federico Zandomeneghi and Armando Spadini