place

San Sebastiano (Mantua)

15th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in ItalyLeon Battista Alberti church buildingsRenaissance architecture in MantuaRoman Catholic churches in Mantua
Mantova, san sebastiano, esterno 01
Mantova, san sebastiano, esterno 01

San Sebastiano is an Early Renaissance church in Mantua, northern Italy. Begun in 1460 according to the designs of Leon Battista Alberti, it was left partially completed in the mid-1470s, by which time construction had slowed and was no longer being directed by Alberti. As a consequence, little remains of Alberti’s work apart from the plan, which is considered one of the earliest and most significant examples of Renassiances centrally-planned churches. The plan is in the shape of a Greek cross, with three identical arms centering apses, under a central cross-vaulted space without any interior partitions. The church sits on a ground-level crypt which was intended to serve as a mausoleum for the Gonzaga family.The complete absence of columns in the façade signified for Rudolf Wittkower a decisive turning-point in Alberti's interpretation of architecture, moving beyond his statements in De Re Aedificatoria where he considered the column the noblest ornament of building. The façade concealing a narthex that runs the full width of the structure is precisely as wide as its height from the entrance level to the apex of the pediment; it may be fitted with the perfect geometry of the square. The temple front has been converted by Alberti into wall-architecture, as Wittkower noted, and a complete series of pilasters, like pillars embedded in the wall, has been elided to the two outermost, and the two flanking Pellegrino Ardizoni's clumsy doorway, which overlaps them and ill suits its space. A surviving letter of 1470 from the patron, Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, to the on-site architect agreeing with Alberti's proposal to reduce the number of pilasters on the portico illuminates Alberti's plan of 1460. The two outer staircases were added in the twentieth century; prior to 1925 old photographs show the entrance was a single stair to the quattrocento loggia appended to Alberti's design. Wittkower demonstrates that Alberti's plan comprised a set of stairs the full width of the façade leading to five doors (three of which have been filled in as dysfunctional balconies). The most unexpected motif in the façade is the central break in the entablature presented by the window opening, doubtless intended to be arch-headed under the arched entablature that joins the outer sections, a motif that Wittkower conjectured Alberti knew from the side elevations of the Roman triumphal arch at Orange.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article San Sebastiano (Mantua) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

San Sebastiano (Mantua)
Viale dei Partigiani,

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: San Sebastiano (Mantua)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 45.15 ° E 10.78 °
placeShow on map

Address

Viale dei Partigiani

Viale dei Partigiani
46100 , Valletta Paiolo
Lombardy, Italy
mapOpen on Google Maps

Mantova, san sebastiano, esterno 01
Mantova, san sebastiano, esterno 01
Share experience

Nearby Places

San Francesco, Mantua
San Francesco, Mantua

The Chiesa di San Francesco ( Italian, "Church of St. Francis" ) is a Roman Catholic church located in the historic center of Mantua, Italy, at Piazza San Francesco d'Assisi 5. The church was founded by the Franciscan Order in 1304 but it was not consecrated until 1459, when Pope Pius II performed the ceremony. Suppressed in 1782, it was sacked in 1797, during the Napoleonic Wars, and turned into an arsenal in 1811. Still in military use when World War II began, it was devastated by bombardment during the war. The Cappella Gonzaga, with its frescoes depicting the life of St. Louis of Toulouse ( Italian: San Ludovico d'Angiò ), was saved and recently restored. These frescoes were supposed to have been painted by Serafino de' Serafini, an artist who was active in Modena during the 14th Century. The church was reconstructed in Romanesque and Gothic styles. Now visible are some of the original frescoes depicting St. Francis Receives the Stigmata by Stefano da Verona. Andrea Mantegna's work St. Bernardino of Siena between Two Angels was originally here but it is now at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy. In the Cappella Gonzaga, built between 1369 and 1484, were buried: Guido Gonzaga, 2nd capitano del popolo of Mantua. Ludovico II Gonzaga, 3rd capitano del popolo of Mantua. Francesco I Gonzaga, 4th capitano del popolo of Mantua. Margherita Malatesta, second wife of Francesco I Gonzaga. Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, 5th capitano del popolo of Mantua. Rodolfo Gonzaga, son of Ludovico III, 2nd Marquis of Mantua. Francesco Cardinal Gonzaga, son of Ludovico III, 2nd Marquis of Mantua.Also at the church were buried other notables: Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the condottiero, buried in full armor in 1526. Blessed Alberto Gonzaga in 1321. Guido Torelli, the founder of the noble family of Torelli, in 1449. Cristoforo I Torelli, son of Guido, in 1460. Francesco Secco, the condottiero who owned the family chapel, in 1496.

Mantua
Mantua

Mantua ( MAN-tew-ə; Italian: Mantova [ˈmantova] ; Lombard and Latin: Mantua) is a comune (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the European Capital of Gastronomy, included in the Eastern Lombardy District (together with the cities of Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona). In 2008, Mantua's centro storico (old town) and Sabbioneta were declared by UNESCO to be a World Heritage Site. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family has made it one of the main artistic, cultural, and especially musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole. Having one of the most splendid courts of Europe of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries. Mantua is noted for its significant role in the history of opera; the city is also known for its architectural treasures and artifacts, elegant palaces, and the medieval and Renaissance cityscape. It is the city where the composer Monteverdi premiered his opera L'Orfeo and to where Romeo was banished in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It is the nearest town to the birthplace of the Roman poet Virgil, who is commemorated by a statue at the lakeside park "Piazza Virgiliana". Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes, created during the 12th century as the city's defence system. These lakes receive water from the River Mincio, a tributary of the River Po which descends from Lake Garda. The three lakes are called Lago Superiore, Lago di Mezzo, and Lago Inferiore ("Upper", "Middle", and "Lower" Lakes, respectively). A fourth lake, Lake Pajolo, which once served as a defensive water ring around the city, dried up at the end of the 18th century. The area and its environs are important not only in naturalistic terms, but also anthropologically and historically; research has highlighted a number of human settlements scattered between Barche di Solferino and Bande di Cavriana, Castellaro and Isolone del Mincio. These dated, without interruption, from Neolithic times (5th–4th millennium BC) to the Bronze Age (2nd–1st millennium BC) and the Gallic phases (2nd–1st centuries BC), and ended with Roman residential settlements, which could be traced to the 3rd century AD. In 2017, Legambiente ranked Mantua as the best Italian city for the quality of the life and environment.