A city within the city
Among the largest royal palaces in Europe, Ducal Palace It extends over an area of 34,000 square meters between Piazza Sordello and Lago di Mezzo. The Gonzaga family lived there and expanded it over the course of three hundred years.
The palace as it stands today is the result of work carried out over several historical periods. The oldest part, built by the Bonacolsi family in the 14th century, was later expanded by the Gonzaga family, becoming a grandiose monumental and architectural complex, where each building is connected to the next by a series of streets, corridors, squares, loggias, gardens, and courtyards; a palace in the shape of a city.
Inside of Ducal Palace, Today National Museum, it is possible to admire masterpieces of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, such as the Rooms with the chivalric cycle by Pisanello, the Bridal Chamber by Mantegna, the precious cabinet-making works in Isabella d'Este's Studiolo, the Troy Apartment created by Giulio Romano and the complete cycle of Flemish tapestries woven from cartoons by Raphael.