Palazzo Te in Mantua by Gian Maria Erbesato

Moreover, through dynamic interactions with the Palazzo del Te the Gonzaga princes produced gendered and sexual identities that reverberated beyond the building's confines. The architecture and decoration of the palace depict an idealized masculinity, in which Federico II and his heirs are depicted as godlike rulers, loyal subjects, virile lovers, prudent leaders, and good Christians. Through court festivities and ceremonial processions the palace served as a stage on which Federico II and his heirs performed before foreigners and locals alike. Giulio Romano's playful approach to architectural proportion and structural integrity, described by contemporaneous sources as disorienting and even frightening, was nevertheless thought to enhance Federico II Gonzaga's princely authority. I argue that the Palazzo del Te (1525-1535) functioned as a space in which courtly masculinity was constructed and performed. Far from a private retreat, the Palazzo Te was employed by Federico to shape a public princely identity in which his love for his mistress was one means by which he projected his amatory self. While modern scholars have used such imagery to characterize Federico as irrationally besotted with his mistress, I argue that he purposefully constructed an identity around concepts of tortured subjectivity and ardent love that were circulating in Mantua and abroad. Erotic and poetic images at the palace were intended to provoke discourse and facilitate masculine homosocial bonding, while the many allusions to Federico’s burning desire for his mistress cast the Mantuan ruler as a man ennobled by his tormented love. Contrary to a body of scholarship which interprets the building as a hedonistic pleasure palace intended to serve as a meeting place for Federico II Gonzaga and his mistress, I argue that Federico used the Palazzo Te to construct a masculine identity based on Petrarchan notions of love. This essay re-examines Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Te (1525-1536) in light of Renaissance attitudes towards masculinity, eroticism, and love.

Palazzo Te in Mantua by Gian Maria Erbesato