Palazzo Te

Book excerpt: A lavish Renaissance pleasure palace for rest and entertainment, decorated with spectacular frescoes of themes from ancient myth Built for Federico II Gonzaga Duke of Mantua between 1525 and 1536, Palazzo Te is the masterpiece of Renaissance artist, designer, and architect Giulio Romano, the most accomplished and favored of Raphael’s pupils. The palace’s interiors are replete with frescoes depicting imaginative scenes and trompe l’oeil fantasies of gods and heroes, fictive marble statues, and portraits of the Duke’s favorite thoroughbreds. From the erotic scenes of the Sala di Psiche to the famous Sala di Giganti, based on the mythological defeat of the Titans by the gods of Olympus, the High Renaissance ideal of classical harmony and balance is overtaken by breathtaking illusionist techniques and images of giants, falling masonry, and the thunderbolts from the gods.