Guglielmo Gonzaga and Santa Barbara

In his harmonic compositions, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga created such sweet and learned melodies, particularly those in which are sung the praises of the divine, that listening to them inflamed even the coldest and iciest of choirs to the love of God. It is no marvel that he was the Patron of Music and was much honoured and esteemed.

These words of praise, pronounced in the funeral oration of Guglielmo Gonzaga, were written by Gregorio Comanini (1587). They describe a musician and Patron of the Arts, a man of culture and a prudent politician who consolidated the prestige of the Duchy of Mantova in the thirty years that he headed its government. The symbol of the power of this refined and cultured man is the Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara, built between 1562 and 1572 to the design of Architect Giovan Battista Bertani. It is no ordinary Church: it reflects the wishes of Guglielmo Gonzaga to build a unique church in the Duchies of the Renaissance period
In the Basilica di Santa Barbara, architecture, painting, music, the liturgy and sacred decorations blend into a single refined project, in which, as Claudio Gallico says, an expert eye can discern the Mannerist dream of an ideal Principality.