Description
The Casa del Mercante is the house-and-shop of a wealthy cloth merchant, on the corner of Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza Mantegna in the center of Mantua. It is one of the most curious civic buildings in the city: a red marble portico, a terracotta façade and, carved on the columns, the symbols of the trade of the man who had it built.
The owner was Giovanni Boniforte da Concorezzo, from a Milanese family, who settled in Mantua with the blessing of Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga. He says so himself on the architraves, in Italian and in Latin: the house was built in 1455.
The portico is held up by columns of red Verona marble. Under the arches was the shop, with the finest fabrics, wools and linens imported from Venice; upstairs was the family home. Behind it rises the medieval Torre del Salaro.
The façade is terracotta, once decorated with little gold leaves. Two friezes of small columns separate the floors, and more friezes run beneath the windows. A third was meant to be up at the top, at the level of the attic floor: you can still see its trace on the wall, but no one knows whether it fell off, was never finished or was sold.
The windows are the strangest and most beautiful part. There are none like them anywhere else in Mantua: those on the first floor have a heavy border of leaf motifs, those on the second a border framed by curls. The architrave of the portico, instead, is decorated with flowers and fruit.
Historians read three influences in it. The hanging little columns are Lombard, the wide window borders have an Eastern flavor, and the layout of the portico with its architrave and the decoration in terracotta and marble is Venetian. They are the same motifs, toothed edges and zigzag friezes, that you can see in the nearby bell tower of Sant'Andrea.
No one knows who designed it, but the whole is so unified that it must be the work of a single artist, or of craftsmen who worked with the same sensibility.
Boniforte's father, Bertone, had been an apothecary and then a money changer, before realizing that the real business was wool. It was he who advised his son to open a cloth shop, and success came quickly.
Boniforte became one of the best-known figures in the city. He was also a supplier to the Gonzaga court and married a Gonzaga, Bartolomea.
On the architrave, between the second and third columns, are carved little bundles tied with ropes, an allusion to the merchant's trade. Around the corner, on the fourth capital, there is a view of a little harbor: Boniforte really did have one, at Porto Mantovano, for the goods arriving from Venice.
That Venice, the source of his wealth, is also the model for the whole house, a tribute to Venetian art. And such a recognizable façade was also the best advertising: the people of Mantua saw it and trusted him.
Don't miss
• The windows.
• The carved bundles on the architrave.
• The little harbor on the fourth capital.
• The red marble columns.
Did you know?
• The merchant's father was an apothecary and a money changer before discovering that the money was in wool.
• The little harbor carved on the capital really existed, at Porto Mantovano.
The owner was Giovanni Boniforte da Concorezzo, from a Milanese family, who settled in Mantua with the blessing of Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga. He says so himself on the architraves, in Italian and in Latin: the house was built in 1455.
The portico is held up by columns of red Verona marble. Under the arches was the shop, with the finest fabrics, wools and linens imported from Venice; upstairs was the family home. Behind it rises the medieval Torre del Salaro.
The façade is terracotta, once decorated with little gold leaves. Two friezes of small columns separate the floors, and more friezes run beneath the windows. A third was meant to be up at the top, at the level of the attic floor: you can still see its trace on the wall, but no one knows whether it fell off, was never finished or was sold.
The windows are the strangest and most beautiful part. There are none like them anywhere else in Mantua: those on the first floor have a heavy border of leaf motifs, those on the second a border framed by curls. The architrave of the portico, instead, is decorated with flowers and fruit.
Historians read three influences in it. The hanging little columns are Lombard, the wide window borders have an Eastern flavor, and the layout of the portico with its architrave and the decoration in terracotta and marble is Venetian. They are the same motifs, toothed edges and zigzag friezes, that you can see in the nearby bell tower of Sant'Andrea.
No one knows who designed it, but the whole is so unified that it must be the work of a single artist, or of craftsmen who worked with the same sensibility.
Boniforte's father, Bertone, had been an apothecary and then a money changer, before realizing that the real business was wool. It was he who advised his son to open a cloth shop, and success came quickly.
Boniforte became one of the best-known figures in the city. He was also a supplier to the Gonzaga court and married a Gonzaga, Bartolomea.
On the architrave, between the second and third columns, are carved little bundles tied with ropes, an allusion to the merchant's trade. Around the corner, on the fourth capital, there is a view of a little harbor: Boniforte really did have one, at Porto Mantovano, for the goods arriving from Venice.
That Venice, the source of his wealth, is also the model for the whole house, a tribute to Venetian art. And such a recognizable façade was also the best advertising: the people of Mantua saw it and trusted him.
Don't miss
• The windows.
• The carved bundles on the architrave.
• The little harbor on the fourth capital.
• The red marble columns.
Did you know?
• The merchant's father was an apothecary and a money changer before discovering that the money was in wool.
• The little harbor carved on the capital really existed, at Porto Mantovano.