Description
Palazzo Canossa is the Baroque residence of the Marquises Canossa, overlooking the square of the same name in the center of Mantua: you spot it at once by the two marble dogs gnawing a bone beneath the balcony over the doorway.
The dog is the family's heraldic emblem. The doorway, between two marble columns, opens in a rusticated façade enlivened by stucco panels showing buildings and landscapes and by windows with broken pediments: frames that recall Giulio Romano.
Inside, a Baroque grand staircase climbs to the piano nobile between Matteo Pedrali's statues of Hercules, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, beneath vaults frescoed by Giovanni Battista Caccioli. Marquis Orazio Canossa had it built between 1659 and 1673; the family lived there until the mid-19th century, after which the palazzo became offices, a school and a clinic.
The dog is the family's heraldic emblem. The doorway, between two marble columns, opens in a rusticated façade enlivened by stucco panels showing buildings and landscapes and by windows with broken pediments: frames that recall Giulio Romano.
Inside, a Baroque grand staircase climbs to the piano nobile between Matteo Pedrali's statues of Hercules, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, beneath vaults frescoed by Giovanni Battista Caccioli. Marquis Orazio Canossa had it built between 1659 and 1673; the family lived there until the mid-19th century, after which the palazzo became offices, a school and a clinic.