Sunday, February 7, 2010

Arte Fiera and Mantua

Buon giorno! I am currently eating breakfast and watching MTV on a Sunday morning, and thought it would be a good time to update my blog. American cultural exports are ubiquitous in Italy, including television and movies, all of which come dubbed in Italian. The most common program that I see on TV, for some reason, is Scrubs. I went to see Avatar for the first time in Italian a few weeks ago and it was pretty amazing. I also see a fair amount of anime on TV here (Full Metal Alchemist, One Piece, Inuyasha). Oh, and since most Italian TV is trash nowadays, *thank God* the USA is there to give us MTV. I'm pretty sure that it's a special Italian version of MTV, because it will frequently go from Lady Gaga to some Italian band I've never heard of to Beyonce.

Last weekend there was an international art festival in Bologna called Arte Fiera. It included a huge exhibition of contemporary artists in the convention center north of the city, a bunch of open houses in museums and historic buildings around the city, and other random art demonstrations. Highlights below!

Entering the Arte Fiera

Corpse Bride...with saxophone accompaniment

My favorite piece of art - a bear constructed entirely out of clothes hangers!


Note: human sized pink espresso maker in background. I want it!

Everyone can participate!

And it wouldn't be complete without a fireworks show!


Mantua

The third and final city that the Brown in Bologna program has shown us in an organized trip is Mantova, or Mantua in English. Mantua, like all other Italian cities, has its own unique story. Mantua struck me as one big medieval fortress, and as such, it was surrounded by 4 artificial lakes built for defense in 1198, and today it is still flanked by water on 3 sides.

Mantua, circa 1575.

The city prospered financially and artistically in the late 13th century under the rule of the Bonacolsi family, and 1328 the wealthy and powerful House of Gonzaga overthrew (and exterminated) the previous rulers in a swift coup d'etat. The Gonzaga family, who were later made Dukes by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, built new city walls, constructed two grand palaces for themselves, sponsored several celebrated Renaissance artists, and ruled over the city for the next 400 years.

The first of the three main sights that I saw in Mantua was the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, who is a well known Renaissance humanist and whose book about perspective painting I had to read for intro. art history at Brown. The second is the Palazzo Ducale (Ducal Palace), which was the massive urban residence of the Gonzaga family. It's actually a conglomeration of buildings, so it is much larger than it appears from the outside facade:


Most of the original artwork in the Palace was removed and scattered around the world after Mantua was conquered by Napoleon and the Austrians and so on, except for the frescoes, which luckily are embedded in the walls. The most famous part of the Palace is the Camera degli Sposi (Wedding Room), which early Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna covered in illusionistic frescoes, such as the one below, which is supposed to make you feel like the room is open to the outside world:


During the summer, they limit this room to only 1,000 visitors per day, and only 5 minutes per person, because every person who passes through it leaves a tiny bit of particulate matter in the air which can damage the frescoes over time. I'm just glad that I didn't go during tourist season, and we were like the only people in there. Now that I think of it, the lack of any sort of heat in the palace probably keeps most of the visitors away during the winter.

The last place we visited was definitely the coolest! Described by Charles Dickens as "a nightmare," the Palazzo Te was the sprawling country get-away for the Gonzaga family, built mostly for the purpose of hosting Francesco Gonzaga's exploits with his mistress who was already married. The room that embodies both of these qualities is called the Hall of Giants, in which every square inch of the walls and ceiling form a continuous fresco painted by Giulio Romano, the star pupil of Rafael. It depicts the scene from classical mythology in which the giants attempt to climb to Mt. Olympus and challenge the gods. The revolt is squashed, however, and Zeus smites the giants with his thunder.

The Gonzaga family dedicated this room to the Holy Roman Emperor as an analogy to the emperor defeating those who dared challenge him. This fasctinatin piece shows heavy influence by the works of both Michelangelo and Rafael, and is considered a masterpiece of the exaggerated and impressive Mannerist style. Beyond the paint job, the room is acoustically an echo chamber, and it is said that when the fireplace was still is place, the reverberating crackling of the burning logs would add to the disturbing feeling produced by the room...so cool!

Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed in either palace, but here are pictures from the internet:




So all in all, the verdict on Mantua is that it is a small and mostly unexciting city nowadays, but if you are easily impressed (or even moderately impressed) by art and history like me, then you will really enjoy what the city has to offer. No description of this city would be complete, however, without mentioning its most famous native: a man who was born in 70 BC in a town 6 km south of Mantua who went by the name of Publius Vergilius Maro... better known as Virgil!

The man, the myth, the legend...

1 comment:

  1. I learned about the Gonzaga family today in my Italian Renaissance history class! Woo hoo! The Italians are so good at art.

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