Mantova, Santa Barbara, Basilica Palatina

In a small square inside the court buildings, the Duke William (1550-1587) assigns to architect Giovanni Battista Bertani the building of the palace’s church. Privileges granted to the basilica included the possibility to have its own liturgy. The church boasts a fine musical chapel; the three-arch vestibule is inserted in a mannerist façade. The interior, whose architecture is full of cultural references, is filled with the light flowing down from the two pavilion lanterns emerging from the nave cover. The presbytery is elevated, and has an apse against which part of the choir stalls lean. A spiral staircase gives access to the crypt, below the presbytery; the crypt has a peculiar architectural layout, with the hall characterised by a nave and two aisles that lead to the elliptical-shaped sanctuary. The paintings inside the church include the presbytery altar piece, depicting the Martyrdom of St Barbara, by Domenico Brusasorci (1564), the organ antas attributed to Fermo Ghisoni, the two large canvases by Lorenzo Costa the Young, the Baptism of Jesus by Teodoro Ghisi, the canvas and the Washing of the Feet by Ippolito Andreasi.