Mantua, the neoclassical dressing rooms of the Ducal Palace, discovered last year, open to the public

Important news at the Ducal Palace in Mantua, with a surprising reopening. In fact, on the occasion of the European Heritage Days 2024 on Saturday, September 28 and Sunday, September 29, 2024, some spaces of Corte Vecchia, hitherto closed to the public, will be open to the public: these are three small rooms (the Room of Jupiter and Juno, the Room of Leda and the so-called Stufetta) that have revealed decorations from the Neoclassical period and are now visible in a new arrangement at the conclusion of a major restoration work. For the first time, therefore, visitors will be able to walk through the three neoclassical dressing rooms of the Ducal Palace.

It is, moreover, a recent discovery. In 2023, in fact, a maintenance of the worn-out 20th-century fabrics that lined the walls of the three rooms was initiated, but neoclassical paintings emerged beneath them, in a different state of preservation. These paintings belong to a very extensive decorative campaign that occurred in large parts of the Old Court in 1812-1813, during the Napoleonic era. The decorations concerned the Pisanello Room, the Papi Room, the New Gallery, the Archers’ Room and the entire Ducal Apartment; archival documents make it possible to specify the name of the painter, the Larian Agostino Comerio, who was commissioned to paint all these rooms, with the assistance of Alessandro Ferraresi, Carlo Bustaffa and, probably, also Giuseppe Canella.

99% of these early 19th-century decorative interventions were wiped out during a campaign of works carried out by Giovanni Paccagnini (the discoverer of Pisanello’s paintings at the Ducal Palace) in the 1950s and 1960s: unfortunately, not only the purely ornamental apparatuses were lost, but also various figurative inserts, as only part of them were torn out and preserved, being mostly removed. Some decorations, however, were simply hidden under cloths and resurfaced last year. The state of preservation was uneven, however, so it was decided to restore all the pictorial traces that emerged on the wall, but to leave in view only those of the Stufetta, which are very well preserved.

This room therefore now offers us valuable evidence of that lost decorative campaign of the Napoleonic era and of the talent of Agostino Comerio, who later became a professor at the Brera Academy, in Milan. The Camerini were the subject of a lengthy conservation intervention that involved several firms, coincidentally all from Brescia: Ilaria Mensi and Alessandra Didonè for the first stages of revelation and prompt intervention of the emerged paintings, which were then restored by the Marchetti&Fontanini firm, while the floors were the subject of intervention by Massimo Ziliani and Ida Gervasoni. In the rooms of Jupiter and Juno and Leda, wall hangings have been restored by Ambientazioni Carraro of Venice, and the rooms come to accommodate a permanent installation, with lighting by Francesco Murano and Luisa Quintiliani, with Gonzaga portraits and with paintings of sacred subjects and small format, which also include numerous discoveries: works resurfaced from storage, restored works and very recent acquisitions.

“The discovery of Comerio’s paintings, perfectly intact in the Stufetta,” says Stefano L’Occaso, director of the Ducal Palace, “was a great and very happy surprise, which not only sheds light on a little-known phase of the Ducal Palace, the second Napoleonic domination, but also allowed us to rethink thelayout of these spaces, with a view to progressively expanding the exhibition itinerary and utilizing the museum’s infinite potential.”

The Camerini will be open to visitors during European Heritage Days 2024 on Saturday, September 28 and Sunday, September 29 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Admission by regular ticket. In addition, on Saturday, September 28, 2024 at 10:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. it will be possible to sign up for an accompanied tour of the restored neoclassical dressing rooms by the staff of the Ducal Palace of Mantua. Reservation via Infopoint tel. 0376 352100 operating Tuesday through Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Admission by ticket from €5, free guide service.

Mantua, the neoclassical dressing rooms of the Ducal Palace, discovered last year, open to the public

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