Palate of Te

For the layman in Architecture which walks in the suburbs of Mantoue, the Palais of the T-piece , isolated square building, give the simple and immediate impression of a reaction to the style of construction of the High Rebirth ( Cinquecento ). It at the same time seems to derogate and obey the rules of the classical architecture of the Rebirth such as they were defined, at the previous century, by Leon Battista Alberti in his work Of Re aedificatoria, 1485 (Architecture and Art to bastir well, transl. 1553) .

Frederic II, marquis de Mantoue, decided, in 1524, of the construction of a residential palate or villa Suburbana . The site envisaged was that of the stables seigneuriales on the island of Te ( Isla LED You ) who was located in the middle of a marshy lake now drained, outside the enclosing walls of Mantoue.

In 1525, the architect in charge of his construction was Jules Romain, one of the pupils of Raphaël, which created the body of the building, a rectangular building around a court, in a 18 months deadline. Construction will be supplemented by a garden bordered of lines of columns in front of the contiguous buildings, finished to them-even by a hemicycle of columns ( Exèdre ).

As for the villa Farnèse (with Rome, in the district of the Trastevere), the extra-muros situation allowed an architecture holding at the same time of the Palais and the Roman villa. The four exterior facades have flat mural pillars framing frontages in withdrawal. Fenestration makes it possible to distinguish the beautiful stage (piano nobile) , which is located at the ground floor, from the upper floor. The frontages are not as symmetrical as it appears to with it and the establishment of the columns is irregular. The frontage Is is distinguished from the three others by reasons palladiens (re-use of the elements of ancient architecture) on its columns and a open Loggia in its center. The centers of the frontages Southern and Northern are bored of three arch S height of the two stages, without Portique nor pinion; they are only roofed passageways towards the interior court. Few windows give on this interior court ( cortile ); on the four sides, the walls with colonnades are decorated of niche S deep and blind windows, and intermediate spaces are rough-cast with spezzato (crushed and tinted plaster), giving life and depth to these surfaces.

Once the structure of the finished building, it was necessary nearly ten years of work with plasterers, sculptors and painters of frescos, until least small surface in the Loggia S and the living rooms is decorated. The signed frescos Benedetto Pagni or Rinaldo Mantovano ( Mantouan ) are today the most remarkable curiosity of the Palate. The topics go from a Olympian Banquet in the living room of Psyché ( Sala di Psiche ) to Chevaux stylized in the living room of the Horses ( Sala dei Cavalli ) to arrive at more surprising of all, that of the living room of the Géants ( Sala dei Giganti ) or the latter, grotesque, seem to emerge from the Chaos.

Many characters of the time visited the places and especially the emperor Charles Quint come in Mantoue in 1530 to raise the Marquis Frederic II with the dignity of Duc.

Once the completed Palate, Frederic made remain his “official” mistress, Isabella Boschetti, in what it called its Palais of the illusions chatoyantes (Palazzo dei lucidi inganni), surrounded by thickets and encircled water of the lake.

One of the parts of the Palate most charming and most evocative of the past is the Casino della Grotta (House of the Cave) , a small succession of private parts arranged around a cave and of a logetta , a balconet covered on which ventured the courtiers after being itself bathed in small a cascades which ran on the Galet S and the Coquillage S encrusted in the walls and the walls.

The fame of the Palate of Te held only one century. In 1630, during the War of succession of Mantoue and the conquest of the duchy, the city and the Palate were plundered by the imperial troops of Ferdinand II. The remainder of the population was victim of one of the worst epidemics of Peste of the history. The palate, put at basic bag in roof, remained like an empty shell and, in this state, the remarkable frescos are all the more surprising that the Nymphe S, the Gods, the Goddesses and the Giants populate walls of empty rooms and resounding.

The Museo Civico (civic Museum) which exposes a collection of art Mésopotamie N sponsored by the editor Arnaldo Mondadori, is lodged today in part of the Palate.

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