INTERVIEWS

Antonio Magini, the great teacher of Ferdinando Gonzaga, wrote of the Mantuan court at the height of his greatness, at the beginning of the 17th century: "the Palazzo Ducale is ... noble like any other desire of the Princes of Italy .. . so well divided into rooms, halls, galleries, adorned with very noble paintings and ancient statues ".
Magini was referring to the great works exhibited by Mantegna, Rubens, Domenico Petti, Giovanni Baglione, Guido Reni, Guercino, Van Dyck, Tintoretto, Tiziano and Veronese which made up the largest art collection in the West. A patrimony that went missing starting from 1628 with the sale to England of Charles I Stuart which was followed between 1630 and 1631 by the "atrocious capture and sack of Mantua" as Manzoni writes in the Promessi Sposi.
After four hundred years, with the exhibition "Gonzaga, the Celeste Galeria", curated by Andrea Emiliani and Raffaella Morselli, which we we inaugurated on September 1st in the two exhibition venues of Palazzo Te and Palazzo Ducale, some of the works of this great collection, example of one of the first European museums. A strongly desired, coveted, desired stage. The result of an extraordinary effort on both a scientific and financial level, which only the synergy between public and private could guarantee.
To build it in recent years it was necessary to retrace the footsteps of the Gonzagas, reconnecting ancient relationships and weaving new contacts with the institutions and museums of origin of the paintings and objects that will be exhibited. Furthermore, the studies on the Gonzaga collections started since 1866 have been brought to a conclusion. One hundred and fifty years of studies which demonstrate the complexity of this exhibition and which give the exact measure of the imposing undertaking put in place.
Now, finally, Mantua, after the great exhibition on Mantegna in 1961, the most recent one on Giulio Romano in 1989 and after the great exhibitions organized by the International Center of Palazzo Te, has been able to launch another great exhibition that places it at the center of the European and international attention, with works from all the main museums in the world. An exhibition that represents the sign of a small but qualified city that aspires to be a "center" of cultural production and that has in the recovery of its past one of the interpretative keys of its modernity, which wants to reconnect the threads of its history with its most high cultural tradition - that of the Gonzagas - to meet the challenges of the future.
So I thank all the public and private entities who have shared this project with us: the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, the Lombardy Region, the Province of Mantua, the Superintendent of the Historical, Artistic and Demoanthropological Heritage of Brescia, Cremona and Mantua, the Mantua Chamber of Commerce, the International Center of Palazzo Te, the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation, the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank, the Banca Agricola Mantovana Foundation, the Banca Agricola Mantovana, the Eni group and precious supporters.