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Opening hours and admissions
Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday: 9,00-18,00. Mondays: 13,00-18,00. Ticket-office: closed at 17,30
Admission:
€ 8,00 Adults
€ 5,00 concession for over 60’s
€ 5.00 groups with 20 people at least
€ 4.00 groups with 200 people at least
€ 2.50 from 12’s to 18’s and university students
Free entrance: children up to 11’s
Palazzo Te in Mantua - Te Palace in Mantua
The Gonzaga protected art and culture, and hosted several important artists like Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Mantegna, Giulio Romano and P.P.Rubens. Notably, the town contains many artworks and architectural treasures that record its important epochs, all of which are examples of a unique patrimony in patrician buildings and in Italian architecture. However, the most important testimony to this skill is undoubtedly the Palazzo Te. Palazzo del Te is a creation of Giulio Romano, meant as the residential villa of Federico II of Gonzaga, in the style of mature Renaissance and with some hints of a certain post-Raphaelian mannerism. Palazzo del Te is an instant simple lecture in the basics of the mannerism style of architecture - a reaction to the High Renaissance. It breaks some of the rules of classical Renaissance architecture, but appears to conform at the same time to the basic rules as defined by Leone Battista Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria a century earlier. The Palazzo del Te is a simple building, constructed in its entirety between 1524 and 1534 purely for the pleasure of a long gone court. Federico II of Gonzaga, Marchis of Mantua decided in 1524 to build a pleasure palace, or 'Villa Suburbana'. The site chosen was that of the family's stables at Isle of Te on the fringe of the marshes just outside Mantua's city walls. The architect commissioned was Giulio Romano a pupil of Raphael. Basically, the palace is a square house built around what the English would call a cloistered courtyard. A formal garden complemented the house. This was enclosed by colonnaded outbuildings terminated by a semi-circular colonnade known as the 'Esedra'. Like the Villa Farnesina the suburban location allowed for a mixing of both Palace and Villa architecture. The four exterior facades have flat pilasters against rusticated walls, the fenestration indicating that the piano nobile is on the ground floor with a secondary floor above. The facades are not as symmetrical as they appear, and the spans of the columns are irregular. Few windows overlook the inner courtyard "cortile". Mannerism's most famous fresco: Giulio Romano's illusionism invents a dome overhead and dissolves the room's architecture in the Fall of the Giants. Once the shell of the building was completed, the real work began, 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. These frescoes are the most remarkable feature of the Palazzo. The subjects range from Olympian banquets in the 'Sala di Psiche' and stylised horses in the 'Sala dei Cavalli' to the most memorable of all - giants and grotesques wreaking havoc, fury and ruin around the walls of the 'Sala dei Giganti'. 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 elevated Federico II of Gonzaga from Marquess to Duke of Mantua in 1530. The glories of the Palazzo del Te were to last one century only, in 1630 Mantua and the palace were sacked by invading forces, the remaining population fell victim to one of the worst plagues in history. The palazzo looted from top to bottom has remained an empty shell: in this bare state its remarkable interiors are even more astounding, the nymphs, god, goddesses and giants continue to run riot around the walls of the empty echoing rooms.
Guide Turistiche
Alliet'ARTI
Tel: 328 4532069
Fax: 0386 51324