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Palazzo Te is one of the most important and best conserved buildings of the Renaissance period. It receives an average of 200,000 visitors a year who come to admire its original architecture, famous decorated rooms and the civic collections on the top floor. Since 1996, these have been included in the tour.
The word Te is a place name that originated in the Middle Ages and either appears in its Latin form Teietum, or shortened to Te, as it is now. The term Teieto derives from Tiglieto, place of lime or linden trees, or Tezeto, from the Latin atteggia (hut), probably bound up with the old French word teza (roof).
Commissioned by Federico II, lord of Mantua, Giulio Romano built the palazzo on the Island of Te, which was surrounded by water until the 18th century.
Palazzo Te was not the residence of the prince. It was, however, where he spent his free time, giving parties, holding ceremonies and grand receptions. This function began in great style with the 1530 celebrations for Emperor Charles V, when the palazzo was only half finished, and continued during the reigns of Federico’s successors.
The building was built and decorated in a decade, from 1525 to 1535. It can be said that every element of which it is composed, from the architecture to the stucco work and the paintings are the fruit of Giulio’s fervent imagination. To carry out his projects he was helped by numerous assistants, some of whom were often of considerable standing. Among these, some of the principal names included Giovanni Battista Scultori, Nicolò da Milano, Luca da Faenza, Benedetto Pagni, Rinaldo Mantovano and Francesco da Bologna, called il Primaticcio.
Primaticcio left Mantua in 1531 to become a major art figure at the court of France.
The palazzo draws inspiration from classical models and develops around a square court. The outer façades and those of the courtyard are given their sober appearance by the use of the single order: semi-pillars on the exterior and semi-columns on the interior extend right up the two storeys of the building to support Doric trabeation with a frieze of triglyphs and metopes. Two sides of the courtyard have the unusual motif of the falling triglyph, as if the building were undergoing sudden and unexpected movement. The plaster work is devised to imitate large smooth slabs of square ashlar set off against roughly hewn pieces. The simulation of costly materials while using inexpensive ones, the alternation of classical motifs and fanciful invention, and the contrast between rules and disregard for them are all typical of Giulio Romano’s style.
The building stands alone on flat ground and develops horizontally, fitting in harmoniously with the landscape. The main rooms are on the ground floor, while the first floor once housed the service quarters. The building looks out via a sober and airy loggia on to a huge garden, from which it is separated by two fish ponds and a bridge. At the end of the garden is a mid 16th century semi-circular exedra, to the left of which is the delightful Secret Garden apartment.
Secret Garden apartment.
Heroic subjects taken from the Classics also appear in the Secret Garden apartment alongside playful and extravagant grotesques, Aesop’s fables and a mysterious tale that speaks of the events of man’s life. A small but elegant loggia opens on to the small walled garden, completed later (end 16th century) by a refreshingly cool artificial grotto with a classical nymphaeum and esoteric alchemic decoration.
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