From chaos to cosmos, a great exhibition for the sixteenth century of Palazzo in – Mantua

Mantua – It is 1525 when Giulio Romano starts work PalazzoThe enjoyment of Federico II Gonzaga at the gates of Mantua. It will take a decade to complete the beautiful Renaissance villa, a total work in which the painter and architect will express all his imagination and competence. Architecture, painting and literature intertwined in the rooms of the palace under the sign of Wonder, in an era of lively artistic yeasts and dramatic transformations. The tribute to the old and the celebration of Federico overlaps in a cultivated and refined score of literary and mythological references, including two examples that still leave drugs: the Frescoot room with the fairy tale of Love and psyche and the one dedicated Giants.

500 years after laying the first stone, Palazzo celebrates the birthday by again launching his calling to place of inspiration and creativity with a program of events that vary from old to contemporary. A year of party that starts with a new set -up and the great exhibition From chaos to cosmos. Metamorphosis at PalazzoPlanned until 29 June with masterpieces from the Renaissance from museums such as the Louvre of Paris, the Albertina van Vienna, the Prado di Madrid, the Borghese Gallery of Rome and the Uffizi of Florence. Tintoretto, Correggio, Rubens, PoussinBut the contemporary Giuseppe Penone also belong to the artists who are called to talk to the frescoes of the Palazzo-Wunderkammer in the name of the metamorphosis, the ovid theme that the room after room penetrates the frescoes of Giulio Romano.

Pieter Paul Rubens, Ratto di Proserpina, 1614-1615, Olio Su Tavola, CM 38×67. Parisi, Musèe du Petit Palais (inv. PDUT954), CC0 Paris Musées / Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts in the city of Paris

“Palazzo TE is een spectaculaire schilderachtige en theatrale machine, bestaande uit een precieze systeem van referenties tussen architectuur, beeldhouwkunst, schilderen, literatuur, mythologie, fantasie, fantasie en wetenschap”, observeert Stefano Baia Curioni, directeur van het museum: “Als de kunst samen in staat is om een ​​​​plek te transformeren, wat een fantastische dimensie is, zelfs meer dan Area, in the context of a fantastic dimension.

After the new story of the sixteenth -century mantua in the first rooms of the building, the visitor is ready to start for an imaginative journey through the themes of the Metamorphosis Ovidiane, leading thread of interior decoration. Precious drawings on loan by the Louvre and the Albertina tell the origins of the Frescoes of Palazzo in, together with the copy of an old part, vulgar translation of Ovid’s work, preserved in the National Library of Rome and in ancient times the Gonzaga life, on which Giulio Roman was based in the ICONOGROAN Roman. In the path edited by Claudia Cieri Via, room after room that the myths told by the Latin writer and taken over by the sixteenth -century artist dialogue with the prestigious host works.

Installation view from chaos to Cosmos. Metamorphosis at Palazzo Te, 2025 – Photo Gian Maria Pontiroli

In the horse room for example the Danae Van Correggio calls on the cycle of the love of Jupiter, made on the occasion of the stay of Emperor Charles V in Mantua. Not to be missed in the same environment – the wider of the building – is the display of tintoretto of the legend of Minerva and AracneTransformed into a spider for challenging the goddess, on loan by the Uffizi. And while the extraordinary room of love and psyche can only be dedicated to Eros, the Windkamer is home to chaos -related images, double, hybrid, starting at the famous myth of Narcissus, while the Eagles room, whose time the tragic has been painted FetonteHets the Proserpine rat Van Rubens, on loan from the Petit Palais in Paris, probably inspired by a stay by the Flemish master in Mantua.

Old myths also continue to offer suggestive ideas to current artists: the Daphne By Giuseppe Penone, contemporary interpretation of the Nymph’s fairy tale that, to escape from Apollo’s violence, turned into a laurel tree, discovered in a section dedicated to nature. “Metamorphosis also includes the lives of people, animals and plants, to achieve hybridizations, distortions and changes, even in literature and art
contemporary ‘, the curator Claudia Cieri explains via:’ In this perspective, a work has been chosen as Daphne By Giuseppe Penone, an artist who works on living matter with exemplary and total strength, and reveals the poetic-philosophical annotations that are accompanied by his drawings. This interpenetration between nature and matter, between art and poetry, emerges in a very similar way in the work of both the artist and Giulio Romano “. The exhibition ends with a tribute to the poet without all this miracle, celebrated in the painting in the painting Triumph of Ovidius By Nicolas Poussin from the national galleries of the old art of Rome.

Installation view from chaos to Cosmos. Metamorphosis at Palazzo Te, 2025 – Photo Gian Maria Pontiroli

The 500 -year -old program of Palazzo will continue in 2025 with a dense calendar of concerts, theatrical versions, dance shows, reading, homes for artists and workshops on the theme of metamorphosis. The highlight of the parties will have been devised an exhibition project by Isaac Julien for the spaces of De FruitierHe will reopen after an extensive restoration. The contemporary artist went to the charm of Palazzo in to create an original work in continuity with the imaginative power of the Gonzagheca Residentie, a monumental multi -channel installation born from comparison with the frescoes of Giulio Romano who wonders, between the past and present relationships. “The work of Isaac Julien will invite you to think about the relationship between different entities of the living world, human and non -human, and about the urgency of an ecological transformation, a transforming idea of ​​embracing concepts such as identity, gender, species”, anticipating the curator Lorenzo Giusti.

There is also one of the most expected interventions The labyrinth designed by the Balich Wonder Studio for the Garden of the ExedraA project that will return the scenographic dimension of the party and the theater machine function of which Palazzo assumed you from the start, when he welcomed the Emperor Carlo V that mantua. Arriving at the end of the year, the labyrinth is a journey to make inspired by the symmetries and geometries of the palace, changing forms, cuts of light and mobile shadows that reflect the fertile chaos of art: every turning point is opened to new perspectives, to the secret room where the idea reveals. The project is celebrating creativity in its essence, a tribute to Palazzo and his visionary spirit, who have been inspired those who have had the courage to get lost to create for 500 years.

Installation view from chaos to Cosmos. Metamorphosis at Palazzo Te, 2025 – Photo Gian Maria Pontiroli