Mantua: the Europe of cities is the title of the 2023 exhibition season of Fondazione Palazzo Te , which, from 24 March 2023 to 7 January 2024 , explores the role of the city of Mantua in the construction of the ideals and values of modern European society since the sixteenth century forward. 

Created in collaboration with the Municipality of Mantua and the Civic Museum of Palazzo Te, this exhibition season reflects on the birth and consolidation of the common European feeling, understood as an expression of scientific, historical and philosophical intentions that have characterized the various member states since ancient times. remote. From classical culture to modernity, the history of Europe has been characterized by transformations necessary to keep pace with the relations and developments of national and supranational states, and no less with the cultural policies of governments that have followed one another over time.

The program opens on March 24 with the dossier exhibition The Emperor and the Duke. Charles V in Mantua curated by Marsel Grosso and Daniela Sogliani, which until 25 June 2023 presents the Portrait of Charles V with the dog painted by Jakob Seisenegger in 1532 – granted by the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna – in dialogue with the Portrait of Frederick II Gonzaga in the 1:1 reproduction of the famous Titian painting created by Factum Foundation, starting from the high resolution scan of the work now kept at the Prado Museum in Madrid.

The chronicles say that Charles V arrived in Mantua on 24 March 1530 and entered the city with great celebrations, then remaining there for 25 days; a single director was tasked with designing the scenography that would serve as the backdrop to the event: Giulio Romano. The trip constituted a crucial point of synthesis between diplomacy, military strategy and cultural politics in which the alliance between Charles V and Federico II Gonzaga became art.

On display are letters from the State Archives of Mantua, an engraving by Giovanni Britto from the Central Institute for Graphics in Rome which portrays Charles V in armour, the Chronicle of the Emperor's journey to Italy from the University Library of Pavia and a drawing from Giulio Romano's workshop for triumphal apparatus.