Mantua, the erotic Giulio Romano is on display at Palazzo Te.

In Mantua, from October 6, 2019 to January 6, 2020, Palazzo Te is hosting the exhibition Giulio Romano. Art and Desire, an exhibition that intends to focus on the erotic implications of the art of Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi de’ Jannuzzi; Rome, 1499 - Mantua, 1546) and the artists who collaborated with him or shared the context in which the great artist originally from Rome worked. Curated by Barbara Furlotti, Guido Rebecchini and Linda Wolk-Simon, the exhibition specifically aims to investigate the correlations between the erotic imagery of the classical world and the inventions that Giulio Romano and colleagues produced in Italy in the first half of the 16th century. The focus is thus on the art of Raphael’s great pupil, but the exhibition path ranges further by highlighting the widespread diffusion of an important repertoire of erotic images in sixteenth-century artistic culture and revealing the continuous cross-references between high and low culture in the production of these images.

On display come works by Giulio Romano and other important artists of the time (beginning with Perin del Vaga and Marcantonio Raimondi), with loans from twenty Italian and foreign institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, and the Uffizi Gallery and the Bargello Museum in Florence. Paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and other objects displayed along the eventful itinerary of the exhibition (which also passes through the world-famous Chamber of the Giants) are meant to highlight the playful, inventive and at times subversive nature of these artistic inventions, while also demonstrating the flexibility with which the erotic subject matter was declined, used in works ranging from drawings to paintings, sculptures to engravings, majolica to tapestries.

An exhibition that is also closely connected to the place that hosts it: the ideal departure is in fact the Chamber of Cupid and Psyche, with Giulio Romano’s frescoes celebrating eroticism in the context of Palazzo Te. There is also room in the exhibition to delve into the history of Modi, the celebrated pornographic images drawn by Giulio Romano, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, accompanied by Pietro Aretino ’s lustful sonnets and then harshly struck down by censorship, so much so that the originals no longer exist. Also arriving from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg is a masterpiece by Giulio Romano, namely the Two Lovers, a work probably made shortly before the painter’s arrival in Mantua in 1524 and then brought to the city of the three lakes for Marquis Federico Gonzaga.

The exhibition is part of the Giulio Romano is Palazzo Te (September 2019 - June 2020) program of exhibitions and events, promoted by the Fondazione Palazzo Te and the Municipality of Mantua, organized and produced with the publishing house Electa. The exhibition is promoted by the City of Mantua, produced and organized by Fondazione Palazzo Te with the publishing house Electa, with contributions from the Lombardy Region, Mantua Chamber of Commerce, Fondazione Banca Agricola Mantovana, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Fondazione Cariverona, Fondazione Comunità Mantovana Onlus, with the support of technical sponsors Aermec, Smeg, Glas Italia, Pilkington and with the support of Amici dei Palazzo Te e dei Musei Mantovani, MeglioMantova, Agroittica Lombarda. The exhibition design is by Lissoni Associati.The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Electa.

It is possible to visit the exhibition during the opening hours of Palazzo Te: Mondays from 1 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesdays to Sundays from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. From Sunday, October 27, the hours are: Monday from 1 to 6:30 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Closed December 25. The ticket office closes one hour earlier. For all info you can consult the program website Mantua: city of Giulio Romano, which gathers all the initiatives dedicated this year to the artist.

Pictured: Giulio Romano, Two Lovers, detail (1523-1524; oil on panel transferred to canvas, 163 x 337 cm; St. Petersburg, Hermitage)

Mantua, the erotic Giulio Romano is on display at Palazzo Te.

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