Charles V in Mantua and a major Rubens exhibition: the 2023 exhibition season of Fondazione Palazzo Te

Mantua: Europe of Cities is the title of Fondazione Palazzo Te’s 2023 exhibition season, which, from March 24, 2023 to January 7, 2024, will explore the role of the city of Mantua in the construction of the ideals and values of modern European society from the 16th century onward.

Produced in collaboration with the City of Mantua and the Museo Civico di Palazzo Te, the exhibition season will reflect on the birth and consolidation of the common European feeling, understood as an expression of scientific, historical and philosophical intentions that have connoted the different member states from the earliest times. From classical culture to modernity, the history of Europe has been marked by transformations necessary to keep pace with the relations and developments of national and supranational statehoods, and no less with the cultural policies of successive governments.

“In those years the cultural foundations were formed for a political practice that still operates today in the difficult coexistence of the state of power and the rule of law, religion and secularism, economic mobilization, prosperity and poverty, war and peace. A practice of reason and freedom,” explained Stefano Baia Curioni, director of Fondazione Palazzo Te. “To this practice of freedom, which is political, economic, cultural and artistic, Fondazione Palazzo Te dedicates the 2023 programming.”

The exhibition program opens on March 24 with the dossier exhibition The Emperor and the Duke. Charles V in Mantua curated by Marsel Grosso and Daniela Sogliani, which until June 25, 2023 will present the Portrait of Charles V with the Dog executed by Jakob Seisenegger in 1532, granted by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in dialogue with the Portrait of Federico II Gonzaga in the 1:1 reproduction of the famous painting by Titian created by Factum Foundation, starting with a high-resolution scan of the work now housed at the Prado Museum in Madrid.
Chronicles tell that Charles V arrived in Mantuan territory precisely on March 24, 1530, and entered the city with great festivities, remaining there for twenty-five days; a single director was commissioned to conceive the setting that would serve as the backdrop for the event: Giulio Romano. An event that was a synthesis of diplomacy, military strategy and cultural policy in which the alliance between Charles V and Federico II Gonzaga became art.
On display are letters from the State Archives of Mantua, an engraving by Giovanni Britto from the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome depicting Charles V in armor, the Chronicle of the Emperor’s Journey to Italy from the University Library of Pavia, and a drawing from Giulio Romano’s workshop for triumphal apparatus.

Programming will continue on October 7, 2023 with the major fall exhibition Rubens’ Gaze on Palazzo Te. Painting, Transformation and Freedom curated by Raffaella Morselli and promoted in collaboration with Museo di Palazzo Ducale in Mantua and Galleria Borghese in Rome, as part of the initiative Rubens! The Birth of a European Painting. On view until Jan. 7, 2024, the exhibition will illustrate the Flemish artist’s journey by showing how much the Renaissance suggestions elaborated in his Mantuan and Italian years continued, evolving, in his maturity painting, to remain as an intellectual and artistic legacy to his pupils. The works exhibited in the rooms of Palazzo Te are intended to highlight the dialogue with the myths and interpretation of Giulio Romano, and no less the never-ending harmony with the Renaissance and mythological fable: this is where Rubens transformed his world into a universal language capable of speaking to all the courts of Europe. This important project enjoys the collaboration of prestigious Italian and international museums and a scientific committee composed of scholars Raffaella Morselli, Sabine van Sprang, Betsy Wieseman, Bert Watteeuw, Francesca Cappelletti, and Stefano L’Occaso.

The collaboration between Fondazione Palazzo Te and Factum Foundation continues into 2023, with the creation of two facsimiles for the exhibitions of the exhibition season. The original works (Titian’s Portrait of Frederick II Gonzaga housed at the Prado Museum and Rubens’ painting The Ecstasy of Gregory the Great for the fall exhibition) have been digitized at very high resolution, making visually perfect copies in every detail, in collaboration with the institutions.

Also this year, Fondazione Palazzo Te presents two important opportunities for in-depth study: Thursday, May 30, 2023 Rubens’s gaze on Giulio Romano, a first webinar held by curator Raffaella Morselli with talks by numerous scholars that anticipates the contents of the fall exhibition; from June 6 to July 7, 2023 For a Europe of Culture, a cycle of five online conferences curated by Stefano Baia Curioni and Cristina Loglio featuring international guests, leading scholars and policymakers on the theme Europe, home of a cultural and artistic practice capable of guarding the value of freedom. The cycle For a Europe of Culture opens the fourth edition of the Palazzo Te School, also this year articulated in the modules Fare Arte, Studiare Arte and Pensare Arte, with the involvement of scholars Guido Rebecchini, Stefania Gerevini, and choreographer Virgilio Sieni.

Alongside the research, from March to September, the Foundation offers the public, in collaboration with Amici di Palazzo Te and local cultural associations, a rich public program of more than thirty appointments of music, dance and theater. There will be no shortage of new meetings and talks in the fall.

The exhibition season Mantua and the Europe of Cities is promoted by the City of Mantua, produced and organized by Palazzo Te, with the contribution of Fondazione Banca Agricola Mantovana, in synergy with Mantova city of art and culture.

Image: Jakob Seisenegger, Portrait of Charles V with Dog, detail (1532; oil on canvas; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie)

Charles V in Mantua and a major Rubens exhibition: the 2023 exhibition season of Fondazione Palazzo Te

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.