Manegna in Padova
Mantegna Itineraries
Visiting Mantegna's Padua.
Theme itineraries in the city
Padua offers as many as six different itineraries to enable visitors to the exhibition “Mantegna and Padua 1445 – 1460” to experience the places, culture and aspects of life in Padua in the years in which Andrea Mantegna received his earliest training and did his first work.
The itineraries visit the places that from medieval times were sites of public functions, the centers of trade and power that allowed the city to grow and develop. They make it possible to grasp the changes that took place in art from late Gothic to the Renaissance, and to examine the progress of its artistic renewal, that started with the arrival in Padua of Donatello and other important Tuscan artists.
In this way, they will have the opportunity not only to admire the works at the exhibition, but also to see and explore the places and sites where Mantegna himself lived and worked, because a thorough understanding of the cultural context and historical environment in which he worked is essential to appreciate the production of an artist and his background.
Justice and power in Mantegna's Padua.
Palazzo della Ragione
Palazzo del Podestà
Loggia della Gran Guardia
Piazza dei Signori and Torre dell’Orologio
The social contracts, controversies and trade relations had as their background, even in the 15th century, the law courts of Palazzo della Ragione, symbol of the juridical and social structure of the city from its communal days; here Mantegna registered his contract with Antonio Ovetari who ordered a cycle of frescoes painted in the family chapel at the Eremitani church.
The itinerary starts from Palazzo del Podestà, rebuilt from its foundations in the 16th century, and the great hall, and proceeds to the Loggia della Gran Guardia, built by the Venetians as the city council hall after the fire of 1420. It ends in Piazza dei Signori, in front of the loggia, where in 1437 a copy of the clock invented by Giovanni Dondi for the entrance to the Reggia Carrarese was installed over the archway of Palazzo del Capitanio.
Arts and trades between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
The wool guild and Piazzetta Garzeria
The smiths guild: Scala dei Ferri, Chiesa S. Clemente, via dei Fabbri
The potters guild in via Boccalerie
The squares named after trades: goldsmiths, shoemakers, bakers, drovers and merchants
The plazas, streets, alleys, workshops were the setting of daily life in Padua when Mantegna lived there until 1460.
During the Renaissance, great concessions were made to fashion and this fostered the development of many small businesses, operated by craftsmen, especially in the apparel and home furnishing sectors. The taste for good living led to the development of a flourishing production of gold jewelry, silver tableware, and bronze objects, based on the teachings of Donatello. There was a great expansion in the ceramic arts, represented by a large production operating in the Boccalerie district. The itinerary explores the most active guilds in the 15th century with visits to the places where they had their production plants or markets.
It starts, therefore, from the little Piazzetta Garzeria, once the site of the important University of Wool with its activities, its chancellery and the meeting halls for its guild members. It proceeds to the adjacent plazas and streets, whose names often refer to the trade carried on there, and ends at the church of San Clemente where some of the guilds had their altars.
Renewed spirituality
Abbey of S. Giustina*: reformed monasticism (frescoes by Giovanni Storlato – Stories of St. Luke. Bernardo da Parenzo – Stories of St. Benedict)
Basilica di Sant’Antonio: Donatello's altar
Vescovado: architecture and decoration
* by reservation only and for groups with guide
Padua in the years Mantegna lived there experienced a cultural renewal that made the city's main religious communities centers of attraction from which various art forms drew new life. The centers of spirituality were renewed in a humanistic key, like the Benedictine monastery of Santa Giustina, the Franciscan abbey of Sant’Antonio and the Vescovado.
The itinerary starts with a visit to Santa Giustina and the frescoes by Giovanni Storlato and Bernardo Parenzano. For the ancient chapel of St. Luke, Mantegna painted a polyptych that is now kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera.
Here the visitor can relive the climate of intense spiritual and cultural renewal promoted by the abbot, Ludovico Barbo, buried in the ancient choir of the church. The visit continues at the Basilica of St. Anthony, where the art of Donatello expresses, in the renewed forms of the Tuscan Renaissance, the intense spirituality of the Franciscan order and the cult of St. Anthony.
It ends at the Vescovado, center of renewal under the bishops Pietro Donato, Fantino Dandolo, Jacopo Zeno and Pietro Barozzi. The architectural reconstruction of the building was followed by the construction of a private chapel for Bishop Barozzi by Lorenzo da Bologna with frescoes by Jacopo da Montagnana.
Aid to the poor and ill
The church and hospital of S. Francesco Grande with the School of Charity
The altar of S. Bernardino da Siena in the Basilica of St. Anthony
Monte di Pietà: place of aid and benefit to the city (only the outside)
The 15th century was also the century in which, thanks to the spirituality of the Franciscans and encouraged in the city by the preachings of San Bernardino da Siena, attention to the poor and ill took the form of important initiatives of aid and relief.
The itinerary starts with a visit to the church of San Francesco Grande, built with the old hospital by Baldo de’ Bonafari and Sibilla de Cetto.
The cloister still bears traces of frescoes with episodes in the life of St. Francis, painted by Francesco Squarcione with his apprentices.
The artist is buried in the atrium of the church. The itinerary proceeds to the School of Charity, headquarters of the confraternity of that name, engaged in the administration of bequests for the aid of the ailing.
It continues with a visit to the altar of San Bernardino da Siena at St. Anthony's, decorated by Minello, and ends with a visit to the outside of the Monte di Pietà building, promoted by Blessed Bernardino da Feltre to defend the poor against usury.
The 15th century aspect of the city*
Palazzo Angeli Bessarione (Prato della Valle, no. 1)
Palazzetto Palla Strozzi (Prato della Valle, no. 21-22)
Palazzetto Olzignani (Pietro Lombardo – via Umberto I, no. 8)
Palazzo Da Zara (via Umberto I, no. 100)
Palazzo Scapin Belloni (via Rudena, no. 8) and lesser buildings
Palazzetto Valdezocco – Vasoin (via Altinate, no. 19)
Palazzetto Arslan (via Altinate, no. 76-80)
Former warehouse of Palla Strozzi (via San Martino e Solferino, no. 37)
Palazzetto Lugli (v. Tadi); near Palazzo Lugli (15th century doorway)
Casa Prosdocimi (via Belle Parti, no. 13)
Palazzetto Soprintendenza-Casa del figo (via Aquileia)
Ruins of Mantegna's house (in the Santa Lucia district)
* exteriors only
This itinerary makes it possible to reconstruct the map of the new aspect that, with measure and discretion, the city began to acquire during the 15th century.
In particular, the exteriors of the buildings, as regards architectural structure and the stone decoration, began to change in the second half of the century, with the spread of a classic taste deriving to some extent from Tuscan influences and in part also linked to the work of Pietro Lombardo and his workshop.
This renewal can also be seen in the architectures that Mantegna painted as settings for episodes from the life of St. Christopher in the Ovetari Chapel. The itinerary thus offers the opportunity to revisit the buildings seen in the master's paintings, with their design, decoration and structure.
Contemporaries and disciples of Mantegna in the Eremitani Museum
Art Museum and Diocesan Museum
Jacopo Bellini (1400 – 1470 ca.) [in the exhibition itinerary at the Eremitani Museum]
Jacopo da Montagnana (1440 – 1499) [Eremitani Museum, Diocesan Museum]
Alvise Vivarini (1445 – 1505) [Eremitani Museum]
Lazzaro Bastiani (1449 – 1512) [Eremitani Museum]
Lorenzo Costa (1460 – 1535) [Eremitani Museum]
Prospero da Piazzola (information from 1472 to 1521) [Eremitani Museum]
Giorgio Culinovic known as Schiavone (1436 c. – 1504) [in the exhibition itinerary at the Eremitani Museum]
The itinerary provides traces for the reconstruction of aspects of Venetian painting at Mantegna's time.
At the Art Museum, alongside works formerly attributed to Mantegna and later found to be by others painters, as in the case of the small paintings on wood by Jacopo Bellini, Lorenzo Costa and the frescoes from the School of St. Mark and Sebastian, now destroyed, we can see interesting examples of the works of those artists, like Jacopo da Montagnana, Alvise Vivarini, Prospero da Piazzola, Lazzaro Bastiani, who were receptive to both the influence of Venetian painting and the lessons of Mantegna. The Museum provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about Jacopo da Montagnana.
Sculpture in Padua in the 15th century
(City Museums - Art Museum, Eremitani Church, Basilica of St. Anthony)
Pietro and Tullio Lombardo, Dalmata, Guido Mazzoni, Minello [Eremitani Museum]
Baroncelli [Eremitani Museum and church]
Andrea da Firenze [Church of St. Peter the Apostle]
Donatello, Bellano, Briosco, Pietro Lombardo, Pietro Lamberti, Nanni di Bartolo [Basilica of St. Anthony]
The itinerary is devoted to sculpture at the time when, towards the mid-15th century, it underwent a fundamental shift towards classicism thanks to the work in Padua of a number of important Tuscan sculptors like Donatello, who worked on the Basilica, and Nicolò Baroncelli. Alongside sculptures in the classic taste from the Venetian workshops, the Lombards and their followers, like Minello and De’ Fondulis, we can see interesting examples of the art of Mazzoni and Briosco, in which the classicism contains touches of expressionism.
Food and wine-tasting itinerary in Padua and environs, on the theme of Mantegna
This delightful initiative will allow visitors to Padua to discover the tastes and flavors of Mantegna's time, through an original itinerary, just for the period of the exhibition, of the restaurants, pastry shops and bars of Padua and nearby towns.
APPE – The provincial association of public food service enterprises – contacted by the organizers of the event, has agreed to create, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce and the collaboration of the City of Padua and the Tourist Board of Padua and Terme Euganee, a program of "theme" hospitality and reception that will offer visitors to the exhibition the extra pleasures of the great Venetian culinary traditions, with dishes that revisit the 15th century and the discovery of unusual culinary specialties, based on careful study promoted by the association and carried out by Pier Angelo Barontini, taste consultant and teacher of cooking courses at the highest level.
Over 40 recipes from 16th century cookbooks – like the “Libro de arte coquinaria” by Maestro Martino of Como and the “De honesta voluptate” by Bartolomeo Scappi, known at “Platina” – and other sources – have been adapted to our time, while maintaining all the essential aspects of the originals: The restaurateurs participating in the initiative could choose one or more dishes on the Mantegna theme to include in their menus, following a special training seminar.
The diversified offering that will be created, in addition to spreading the fame of Padua's cuisine, will further illustrate how Mantegna's time was a crucial period in the development of the great Italian culinary tradition: a time of change and development of Italian tastes and the art of good eating, shortly thereafter "exported" even to France.
The restaurants and other shops participating in the initiative will be marked by posters and window signs, while the diners who select the “Mantegna” dish will be offered a memento-gadget.
Bars in Padua will serve a special aperitif during the exhibition, instead of the famous “spritz”, called the “Mantegnino” a cocktail developed for the occasion consisting of rosè wine, Campari bitters and Martini Rosso, flavored with fresh crushed mint, chipped ice and a slice of lemon.
...continue==>
|
online Veneto guide