The oldest part of Palazzo Ducale is known as Corte Vecchia. First it was occupied by the Bonacolsi and then, after dal 1328, by the Gonzaga family, which kept it as its residence until 1459, when Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga moved to Castello di San Giorgio. Under Ludovico’s rule the Castle became the emblem of Renaissance culture: the most significant example is the unparalleled Camera Picta or degli Sposi, where Andrea Mantegna worked between 1465 and 1474. The most outstanding exhibits at Corte Vecchia include Sala del Pisanello, with the Lancelot fresco, a Breton romance about the antics of the Knights of the Round Table, Sale degli Arazzi, with new, very precious Flemish tapestries woven on Raffaello Sanzio’s paper models for the Sistine Chapel and produced with a personalised hem for Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, Isabella d’Este Gonzaga’s widow quarters and the famous studio, the secret garden, and the Grotta.
The block of buildings built on the side of lake Inferiore is called Corte Nuova. The most outstanding examples include buildings by Giulio Romano and Giovanni Battista Bertani such as the Appartamento di Troia, the charming Palazzina della Rustica, the lush Galleria della Mostra, and the grand Sala di Manto, Duke Guglielmo’s Salle des Fêtes. Also for Guglielmo, a Duke and a musician, in 1563 Giovanni Battista Bertani started constructing the building’s visual fulcrum: the palatine church of Santa Barbara and its incredible acoustics.
