Description
The Church of Sant'Orsola is an octagonal Baroque church on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, in Mantua: the last remnant of the great convent that Margherita Gonzaga, widowed Duchess of Ferrara, founded for herself and her nuns, almost a second court.
It was built by Antonio Maria Viani, architect to the Gonzaga court, starting in 1608, and four years were enough to finish it. The façade, still Renaissance in taste, has a single order of half-columns; above it looms the octagonal lantern tower that covers the whole interior.
Inside, on the high altar, is the altarpiece of Saint Ursula by Lanfranco, the saint to whom the church is dedicated. On the other altars hang two 17th-century canvases: the Immaculate Conception by Alessandro Turchi and the painting by Giuseppe Vermiglio with which the duchess paid homage to her relative Aloysius Gonzaga, recently declared blessed.
Margherita, sister of Duke Vincenzo I, had been widowed in 1597 on the death of Alfonso II d'Este and had returned to Mantua. Not wanting to sit idle at her brother's court, she first had a small oratory built, then wanted a larger church.
In 1608 she moved into the convent for good. It was a small town: cloisters, courtyards and gardens linked by porticoes and corridors, fifty nuns, an apartment for the duchess and rooms for noblewomen who wished to withdraw for a while.
For the altars she called on painters such as Domenico Fetti, his sister Lucrina, who was a nun, and Ludovico Carracci. A painting by Fetti, now in the Palazzo Ducale, shows Margherita herself receiving the model of the church.
Margherita, who died in 1618, is buried here; so is Isabella Clara of Austria, wife of Carlo II Gonzaga-Nevers, who died in 1685. Between 1782 and 1786 Joseph II suppressed the convent, which became barracks and then the city hospital.
When the hospital moved, in the 1930s, the convent buildings were torn down. In essence only the church survived, left standing on the corner between the old Corso Pradella and the new Via Bonomi.
It was built by Antonio Maria Viani, architect to the Gonzaga court, starting in 1608, and four years were enough to finish it. The façade, still Renaissance in taste, has a single order of half-columns; above it looms the octagonal lantern tower that covers the whole interior.
Inside, on the high altar, is the altarpiece of Saint Ursula by Lanfranco, the saint to whom the church is dedicated. On the other altars hang two 17th-century canvases: the Immaculate Conception by Alessandro Turchi and the painting by Giuseppe Vermiglio with which the duchess paid homage to her relative Aloysius Gonzaga, recently declared blessed.
Margherita, sister of Duke Vincenzo I, had been widowed in 1597 on the death of Alfonso II d'Este and had returned to Mantua. Not wanting to sit idle at her brother's court, she first had a small oratory built, then wanted a larger church.
In 1608 she moved into the convent for good. It was a small town: cloisters, courtyards and gardens linked by porticoes and corridors, fifty nuns, an apartment for the duchess and rooms for noblewomen who wished to withdraw for a while.
For the altars she called on painters such as Domenico Fetti, his sister Lucrina, who was a nun, and Ludovico Carracci. A painting by Fetti, now in the Palazzo Ducale, shows Margherita herself receiving the model of the church.
Margherita, who died in 1618, is buried here; so is Isabella Clara of Austria, wife of Carlo II Gonzaga-Nevers, who died in 1685. Between 1782 and 1786 Joseph II suppressed the convent, which became barracks and then the city hospital.
When the hospital moved, in the 1930s, the convent buildings were torn down. In essence only the church survived, left standing on the corner between the old Corso Pradella and the new Via Bonomi.