Description
The House of Giulio Romano is the palazzo that the Gonzaga's great architect designed for himself on Via Carlo Poma, in the center of Mantua, opposite the church of San Barnaba: one of the first houses an artist ever designed to live in. It is private and lived in, but you can admire the façade from the street.
At street level, above the doorway, a niche holds a small statue of Mercury, an ancient marble. The piano nobile plays with form: pedimented windows set inside rusticated arches, beneath a decorated cornice, and eight grotesque masks.
Giulio bought the 15th-century building around 1538 and remade it to suit himself. Giorgio Vasari, who visited it, remembered a “fantastic façade, all worked with colored stucco.” Today's façade is different: later the architect Paolo Pozzo lengthened it from six bays to eight.
At street level, above the doorway, a niche holds a small statue of Mercury, an ancient marble. The piano nobile plays with form: pedimented windows set inside rusticated arches, beneath a decorated cornice, and eight grotesque masks.
Giulio bought the 15th-century building around 1538 and remade it to suit himself. Giorgio Vasari, who visited it, remembered a “fantastic façade, all worked with colored stucco.” Today's façade is different: later the architect Paolo Pozzo lengthened it from six bays to eight.