As in the time of its greatest prosperity, Giulio Romano was made the arbiter of everything that was erected at Mantua, I expected to have found some degree of uniformity of style in its buildings, but on the contrary it is, I think, the most whimsical and capricious in its architecture of any city in Italy. The cathedral was a Gothic building of brick, and one or two fragments of the old edifice remain in a very picturesque style. The side chapels form a range of extremely acute gables, or perhaps I should say pediments, for the horizontal cornice is continued across them, while there is merely a small moulding on the rake, which cannot be called a cornice, and it is difficult to give them an appropriate name; below are two lancet windows, and turrets between the chapels, rising on a sort of buttress. I do not pretend to decide upon the date. It was altered, or perhaps rather rebuilt by Giulio Romano; and the inside is from his designs, but with some more modern alterations. As it stands now it might be esteemed a bad imitation of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, but with double ranges of side-aisles. The columns stand very wide apart. Giulio Romano was fond of giving an appearance of squareness in his principal divisions, as I have already observed to you in the account of some of his works. The clerestory is an upper order of pilasters, which as usual in churches of this design, is too large in proportion to the lower. There is not a window over every intercolumn, but they alternate with niches. The first aisle on each side is arched; the second has a flat covering. The church forms a cross with a small cupola at the intersection; it is too high in proportion to its width.
The Palace of the Tè is said, but erroneously, to have derived its name from its ground plan presenting a form similar to that of the letter. This is also of the architecture of Giulio Romano. The spaces between the columns or pilasters are nearly as wide as they are high. In the internal architecture there is little to admire, but there is a great deal of fine painting by this artist and his pupils.
There are two churches in Mantua, built from the design of L. B. Alberti. The first I shall mention is that of St. Sebastian. The front has, on the ground level, an arcade of five arches, with pilasters between, very small in proportion to the great square mass above. The entablature, which finishes the building under the pediment, is cut by a little arch, which contains a window, and underneath this has been a fresco of Andrea Mantegna. Internally, the room has the shape of a Greek cross, with slight recesses, one of which is filled up with a gallery supported on columns and arches, very well introduced; but the details are not good, and the whole is whitewashed. The other, and much the finer church, is that of Sant Andrea, which may fairly be considered as one of the handsomest in Italy. The doorway is ornamented with an imitation of the pilaster foliage in the Villa Medici at Rome, which I have before mentioned to you, and it is well drawn, and well executed, except that a vase is substituted at the bottom for the beautiful group of acanthus leaves which exists in the original. Internally, the nave is supported on pilasters, which are alternately about three and a half, and seven diameters apart, the largest spaces being arched chapels. The pilasters are all panelled, and filled with painted ornaments, which have rather too much opposition of colour. The vault is unbroken, and has regular square panels. The principal light is from the drum of the cupola, but there are also semicircular windows at the extremities of the side chapels, and small circular windows over the narrower interpilasters, which would be better omitted. This edifice was begun in 1470, but the whole was not completed till so late as 1782, so that considerable alteration may have been made in the original design. It is about 340 feet long, and the nave is about 60 feet wide and 90 high.
There is a bridge over the branch of the Mincio which traverses the city, on which Giulio Romano erected an open arcade for the fish-market. Over the arches is a low story, divided into nearly square compartments, and a window in each. The design is good, as is that of the public slaughter-house, also built over the river, and which is still plainer, as there is no cornice over the arches, and no mouldings or panelling above, except the cornice which crowns the building.
Mantua, you know, is in a great measure surrounded by a lake, formed by damming up the waters of the Mincio. This lake is traversed by two long bridges, or perhaps I should rather call them dams, which are in some parts perforated by arches, to let out the superfluous water. At the extremity of the upper bridge there is a gateway attributed to Giulio Romano, which is really a handsome composition; but it would be difficult to describe it. The dwelling of this painter-architect is also exhibited. He has been very whimsical in the composition, and one can see no object for the mode in which he has managed it.
Mantua upon the whole is neither a fine city, nor in a pleasant situation. The best part is the Piazza Virgiliana, which is a large square, surrounded with trees, and open on one side to the lake, and to the distant Alps.
From Mantua I descended in a passage-boat to Ferrara, but there is no great beauty of river scenery either on the Mincio or the Po. We did not reach Ponte di Lago Scuro till past nine, and an insolent underling at the customhouse, told us we might carry our things back to the boat, for that nothing would be passed that night, nor should we ourselves be permitted to proceed. After waiting a little while however, the superior made his appearance, and all our matters were arranged without farther difficulty, but the stories we heard of a gang of robbers going about the country in small parties, induced us to put up with very bad accommodations at Ponte di Lago Scuro, rather than to go at once to Ferrara. There were several circumstances which persuaded me that these stories were excessively exaggerated, but it was most prudent to stay. The bridges over the Po, from one of which this place derives part of its name, have less claim to the appellation than any I ever saw. A string of eight or ten boats is made by fastening them together with long ropes; the upper one is moored in the middle of the river, and the ferry-boat is attached to the lowest, and by help of a large rudder, on which the stream acts diagonally, swings across from one side of the water to the other. On the next morning we reached Ferrara at half-past eight, and I spent the day in looking at the architecture and paintings of the city. I have already mentioned the Duomo in a former letter, but as I surveyed it at this time more at my leisure, I shall give you some further account of it. It was consecrated in 1135, and of this ancient part, the front, and great part of the sides still remain. Internally, however, all the earlier work is destroyed or covered up. The semicircular end of the choir was erected in 1499. For the ancient sculpture we have the name of a certain Nicolaus:
“Fo Niclao sculptore
“E Gliemo fo l’auctore.”
but we have not the name of the architect who designed the façade; for this Gliemo was Guglielmo degli Adelardi, a nobleman, at whose expense the church was built. The architect of the circular part is said to have been a Ferrarese, of the name of Biagio Rosette, one of the early restorers of Italian architecture, who died in 1516, but I know not at what age, and I cannot find his name in Milizia. The remainder of the part beyond the transept was modernized in 1637, and the rest of the church between 1712 and 1735. The front is divided into three equal parts, each surmounted with a gable, and ornamented with horizontal ranges of pointed arches, and smaller arches also pointed, are disposed under the rake of the gable. In each gable there is a small wheel-window. The porch has a semicircular arch resting on columns. Whatever may be said for ranges of arches supported on columns, these single arches, with merely one slender column on each side, must be reprobated in every style of architecture. A small turret resting on a square base carried down to the ground, and crowned with a pinnacle, separates the gables, and a similar ornament seems to have been adopted at the extreme angles of the front, but the upper part of them has been destroyed. The flanks are ornamented, not with pointed, but with semicircular arches. There is, however, an ornament above the upper range, which exhibits the reversed arch, but it may have been an addition. This want of correspondence between the side and front, makes one suspect that they are not precisely of the same date, and the flank is probably the oldest, as the architecture corresponds with that of other edifices in Italy of the eleventh century, and the early part of the twelfth; the front I should think posterior to the dedication. The inside contains some good paintings, but nothing fine in architecture, and there are many fine pictures in the churches and palaces of the city, but nothing of first-rate excellence. The best are principally by Guercino and Garofalo. The general style of architecture is much superior to what I have lately seen north of the Po. The city does not boast any remarkable building, any more than any of the very fine paintings, but the palaces have an air of solidity and magnificence. The straight streets in the new parts of the town want houses, and there are too many traces of decay; yet, when an enumeration was made in 1784, Ferrara and its suburbs contained 31,253 inhabitants, which is far more than you would suppose from present appearances. As it seems to possess no advantages of situation either for commerce or habitation, we may wonder that it should contain so many, but in the time of its glory, in the thirteenth century, under the family of Este, at first as chief magistrates, and afterwards as hereditary governors, either acting independently, or holding of the pope, Ferrara is computed to have contained more than twice the number. Its greatest celebrity arises from its association with the names of Ariosto and Tasso, who paid in praise, the ambiguous patronage of the house of Este. The habitation of Ariosto is still shewn; it was built by himself. It is a pity he had not a better architect. His chair and inkstand, and a portion of the original manuscript of the Orlando are preserved in it.