In the Gallery of Metamorphoses of Ducal Palace The permanent exhibition "Naturalia e Mirabilia. Science at the Court of the Gonzagas" has been opened, evoking the Gonzagas' famous Wunderkammer ("chamber of wonders"). The curious and astonishing pieces are on display to the public through a new, specially designed exhibition that blends the works and the spaces.
The Gonzaga family's rich natural history collection offered a "scientific sampling" of the then-known universe, astonishing visitors. The new, specially designed collection aims to evoke that kind of three-dimensional encyclopedia of the visible world of the time, a time when science, folklore, and myth blended in a synthesis that today may seem curious and bizarre. On display here are artifacts from the animal and mineral worlds, such as a crocodile, an armadillo, a rare bezoar, a shark's jawbone, fossils, stones, lapis lazuli, and so on, offering an opportunity to explore scientific approaches between the 16th and 17th centuries, revealing the use and function of these and other spaces in the Doge's Palace.
