Trascrizione
The Santa Barbara corridor connects the Sala di Manto to the Corte Vecchia. Its name derives from its proximity to the eponymous palace basilica. A direct passageway allowed the court to reach the church privately without actually leaving the building.
The basilica of Santa Barbara was built in the 1660s by Giovanni Battista Bertani, commissioned by Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga. The “corridor” was built between 1580 and 1582, above one of the arcades that border three sides of Piazza Castello. Proceeding in the direction of Corte Vecchia there is a view of the square and the basilica façade on the left, and of Piazza Castello on the right.
In the early seventeenth century the corridor was hung with numerous paintings, the works exhibited here today, however, are no longer those of the famous Gonzaga picture gallery, but come from Mantuan churches and convents suppressed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They include the five paintings telling the Stories of Saint John the Evangelist, which we can see in the upper part of the wall towards the basilica of Santa Barbara. This cycle was painted around the mid–sixteenth century by painters Girolamo Bèdoli and Fermo Ghisoni, and reveals the profound impact made by Giulio Romano’s long career in the city.