Sabbioneta

The title of this article is ambiguous. On the Counts of Sabbioneta and Rodigo see Gonzaga di Sabbioneta , for the astronomer Gerhard von Sabbioneta .

Sabbioneta
Country	Italy
region	Lombardy
province	Mantua  (MN)
Coordinates	45 ° 0 '  N , 10 ° 29'  E Coordinates: 44 ° 59 '57 "  N , 10 ° 29' 23"  E
height	18  m slm
surface	37 km²
Residents	4,124 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density	111 inhabitants / km²
Post Code	46018
prefix	0375
ISTAT number	020054
Popular name	Sabbionetani
Patron saint	holy sebastian
Website	Sabbioneta

The entire city complex with its historical buildings

Sabbioneta is an Italian Renaissance town with 4124 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the Po Valley between Parma and Mantua in Lombardy . The completely restored city ​​wall , impressive for the size of the city, is laid out in the form of an irregular hexagon with star-shaped protruding bastions . Two city gates open up the city: The Porta Vittoria (around 1565) and the Porta Imperiale (1579). Two additional access roads were laid out around 1900.

In 2008 the old towns of Sabbioneta and Mantua were jointly included in the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage . Sabbioneta is also a member of the I borghi più belli d'Italia association (The Most Beautiful Places in Italy).

Sabbioneta

history

Vespasiano Gonzaga (1531–1591), Duke of Sabbioneta and descendant of a sideline of the Gonzaga family of Mantua, used his experience as a fortress builder in Spain and North Africa to develop the city and castle, inherited from his father's side, into a royal residence. Between 1554 and 1571 Sabbioneta was built as an ideal city and thus formed the first autonomous city of the Renaissance. The largest and most modern gallery building of the Cinquecento in northern Italy is located here, which is still internationally recognized in the art world, and one of the two oldest free-standing theaters in Italy since late antiquity, the Teatro Olimpico . The other, begun in 1579, is the Renaissance theater in Vicenza, also called the Olimpico .

The unusual, at first glance seemingly irregular layout of the floor plan (a square grid, inscribed in an asymmetrical fastening hexagon) was researched primarily by Jan Pieper (until 2013 as professor at the Chair for Building History and Monument Preservation at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen ). Pieper discovered that the city grid designed by Vespasiano Gonzaga uses proportions of the Pythagorean musical intervals in its subdivisions : major third, fourth, fifth and major whole tone. Gonzaga aligned the main axis of the city to the point of sunrise on his birthday (December 6th according to the Julian calendar), following the example of the Roman Empire.

Attractions

Of the numerous buildings in the center are particularly noteworthy:

• The Ducal Palace (Palazzo Ducale) was the official residence and official residence of the Dukes of Sabbioneta. Particularly noteworthy here are the artistically carved wooden ceilings and the three life-size wooden horse statues with riders, one of them with the figure of the duke (see illustration below).
• The Church of S. Maria Assunta was built between 1578 and 1582. The bell tower, entrance portal, chapel and interior decoration date from the 18th century.
• The synagogue was built in 1824 on the foundation walls of an earlier synagogue in the old Jewish quarter. Furnishings come from older temples, some from the 16th century.

• 

  Palazzo Ducale

• 

  Galleria degli antichi

• 

  Galleria degli antichi

• 

  synagogue

• The Gallery of Ancient Art (Galleria degli Antichi) was built by Vespasiano Gonzaga to house his collection of antiquities with 18 busts and 32 marble statues, which he inherited from his father Luigi and grandfather. With a length of 96 meters, it is one of the longest Renaissance galleries and is one of the largest collections of its kind on Italian soil, alongside those of Farnese, Este and the Belvedere in Rome.
• The Teatro Olimpico was built between 1588 and 1590 by Vincenzo Scamozzi based on the model of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza . It is the first free-standing theater in Europe that was built specifically for this purpose. Inside there is a gallery with Corinthian columns that support a cornice on which there are figures of Greek gods. The permanently installed stage set was lost in the 18th century and was recreated from the original a few years ago.
• The Palazzo del Giardino got a rather simple exterior and was built between 1578 and 1588. Since it was reserved entirely for the Duke's private life ('vita contemplativa'), it was designed as a suburban, two-story villa with a view of the garden. Its 15 painted rooms were frescoed with mythological and historicizing scenes.
• The Carmelite Church and Monastery were built in 1683 on the foundations of a church built by Gonzaga around 1580.
• The Convento dei Servi di Maria was built between 1588 and 1593. Until 1798 it served as accommodation for the monks of the Order of the Servites.
• In the octagonal church dell'Incoronata, built between 1586 and 1588, is the burial chamber of Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga and his bronze statue, the work of Leone Leoni .

• 

  Statue of the Duca

• 

  Theater stage

• 

  Gallery above the auditorium

After the death of its city founder and planner Vespasiano Gonzaga, however, the city lost more and more of its importance, since it was more like a village in terms of the number of inhabitants. In its structural form, however, it has been almost completely preserved to this day.

Trivia

The Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci used the backdrop of the city in 1969 for his film Strategia del ragno (German strategy of the spider ).

Since 2007, the Chair of Architectural History at RWTH Aachen University has examined and measured the stately buildings in Sabbioneta using historical building research methods. In November 2015 there was an exhibition in the Reiff Museum of RWTH Aachen University.

literature

• Gerrit Confurius: Sabbioneta or The Fine Art of Founding a City . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-596-10532-3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
2. ^ Bettina Marten: The fortresses Vespasiano Gonzagas under Philip II of Spain. Hamburg 1995 p. 173 f.
3. ^ I borghi più belli d'Italia. Borghipiubelliditalia.it, accessed July 30, 2017 (Italian). 
4. ↑ S.Grötz: The self-presentation of a ruler . Marburg 1993.
5. ↑ Hildegard Wulz: The "Galleria degli Antichi" of Vespasiano Gonzaga in Sabbioneta . Ed .: Hans Schüller. Verlag Michael Imhof, Petersberg / Hessen 2017, ISBN 3-86568-095-X , p. 7 .
6. ↑ Jan Pieper: Example Sabloneta quadrata , the Roman basis of the city map of Sabbioneta. Zs. Bauwelt 40–41 / 05, Bauverlag BV, Gütersloh. Pp. 33-45
7. ↑ Jan Pieper: Sabbioneta - The dimensional figure of an ideal city. In: Heritage. RWTH Aachen, September 17, 2012, accessed on November 2, 2019 . 

Web links

Commons : Sabbioneta  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• official website
• Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).