Trascrizione
Palazzo del Capitano and the adjacent Magna Domus, once owned by the Bonacolsi family, formed the main Gonzaga residence from the time they took power in 1328 until the 1400s. The apartments are named for Anna Isabella di Guastalla, wife of the last Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga Nevers. The rooms were restored at the turn of the seventeenth century by the prefect of the ducal studio, Antonio Maria Viani, at the behest of Duke Francesco IV.
In the first room we see a frieze removed from the Sala del Pisanello placed at the top left of the door leading to the other rooms and depicting the Gonzagas, beginning with Luigi, the first captain of the people in 1328.
Today this is an exhibition space for Medieval paintings and sculptures. The recumbent figure of Alda d’Este, wife of Ludovico I was part of a majestic monument erected in the church of San Francesco after her death in 1381.
In the next room there is the most significant example of the fourteenth-century decor of these rooms: the Crucifixion that originally embellished the Palazzo del Capitano chapel, a fresco by an Emilian artist produced in about 1340. The patrons were Luigi Gonzaga’s three sons – Guido, Feltrino and Filippino – who may well be the figures we see on horseback to the right of the scene.
The strong expressive impact of the fresco is forged by the virtuoso foreshortening of the horse in the foreground, the crucified thief seen from behind and the crude Y-shaped cross upon which Christ is nailed.