Trascrizione
The Palazzo Ducale complex has several green areas, including the unique Hanging Garden, which rises to about twelve metres above ground level.
Guglielmo Gonzaga ordered its construction in 1579 or thereabouts, entrusting it to the architect Pompeo Pedemonte who designed two superimposed orders of vaulted galleries developed to support the weight of the garden.
In the years that followed, the project was completed by Bernardino Facciotto, who added a grotto with a fountain in the centre of the side facing the Sala dei Fiumi. During the eighteenth century, the Habsburgs replaced this element with a Kaffeehaus, namely a pavilion intended for entertainment and dining. With its striking perforated wooden vault inspired by the creations of Antonio Bibiena, the walls of this elegant structure are clad in precious marble from Sabbioneta’s Palazzo del Giardino. On one side of the garden we see the lateral frontage of Mantua Cathedral with late-Gothic-style modifications, commissioned in the 1400s from Venetian sculptors Jacobello and Pietro Paolo Dalle Masegne by Captain of the People, Francesco I Gonzaga.