Mantua, Ducal Palace, Gallery of the Months:
the Western Wall

The western wall belongs to the decorative phase following the doubling of the room and its transformation from a loggia to the current gallery. The decorative apparatus follows the original Giulio Romano’s eastern extremity, of which some sculptural elements were recovered. The stucco cornice of the vault divides the head into two large sectors: the upper lunette and the wall below, in the centre of which there is a large niche. The lunette houses a circular stucco niche holding a recently placed plaster bust of a Roman emperor. The bust of the goddess Minerva was originally placed here. It was moved to England with the sale of the Gonzaga assets to the Crown (1627) and was later dispersed. The lunette has a background with a lush decoration painted with vegetal spirals and grotesque motifs on a white background. The large niche below is flanked by spaces intended for reliefs, distributed above and below the stucco cornice which acts as an entablature and base of the basin of the niche itself. The two upper sectors host two stuccos depicting "The Day" (or "Apollo with the Horses of the Sun"), and "The Night" (or "Allegory of Sleep"). These are recent copies. In fact, the two original reliefs were transferred to Palazzo Te in 1813. In the lower sector, above the small left door, there is a Giulio Romano’s stucco depicting a female figure discovered by a man near a source. The scene has been interpreted as the meeting of Manto and the god Tiberinus, parents of Ocno, founder and first king of Mantua, according to Virgil. In a symmetrical position, on the second door, there is a stucco depicting a semi-reclining female figure, headless and without one arm, with two cupids in the background. The current relief has replaced, on dates not yet specified, a composition of which the design of the head made by Andreasi preserves memory and consisting of an assembly between a Roman marble, the "Throne of Jupiter" and a stucco Ganymede invented by Giulio . The interior of the niche contains central stucco medallions and painted shell valves at the four corners. The subjects modelled are an Abundance (left), two figures shaking hands as a sign of peace (centre), an unidentifiable draped female figure (right). The wall is carved out by two smaller niches with a basin shaped like a shell and a background painted with imitation marble. The left niche, which today houses an ancient sculpture, must have contained the female statue foreseen by the original Giulio Romano’s project (unidentified) while the right, in which the ancient statue of a flutist is now placed, housed a Mercury. The three reliefs depicting cupids with martial attributes, which were walled into the two recesses above the niches, were relocated here after 1992 with the intention of returning the sculptures to the position conceived by Giulio Romano in the original eastern extremity. The three martial geniuses are Renaissance works , realised according to the model of antiquity and recently connected to the collection of Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga and attributed to Bernardino Germani.