Palazzo Te

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 favoured of all Raphael's pupils. Ugo Bazzotti, former director of the Palazzo Te, takes the reader via superb photography through the atriums, halls, courtyards and gardens that constitute this elaborate masterpiece of Mannerist decoration, explaining its history and the inventiveness and versatility of its creator, Giulio Romano. 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, with images of giants, falling masonry and the gods' thunderbolts filling the visitor's imagination.