Federico II Gonzaga
Federico II Gonzaga ruled Mantua and commissioned the Palazzo Te. Born in 1500, the eldest son of Francesco II Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este, he was sent to Rome at ten as a hostage to guarantee his father's conduct, spent three years at the court of Julius II and Leo X, and was then held at the French court — an upbringing that gave him an education in art and diplomacy and very little in loyalty. He succeeded as marquis in 1519 at nineteen, with his mother governing effectively for some years. He spent his reign balancing between France and the Empire, holding a small state on the plain between Milan and Venice that could not survive a wrong choice. He commanded papal forces, changed sides after Pavia in 1525, and was made Duke of Mantua by Charles V in 1530 in exchange for consistent imperial support. He acquired Montferrat by marriage in 1536, which enlarged the state substantially. His patronage is what survives. He brought Giulio Romano, Raphael's principal assistant, from Rome in 1524 and gave him effectively unlimited authority as architect and painter. The Palazzo Te, built on an island outside the walls between 1525 and 1535 as a pleasure villa and stables, is the defining building of Mannerism — a rusticated single-storey block whose classical vocabulary is deliberately misapplied, with keystones that slip and triglyphs that drop, and whose Room of the Giants is frescoed floor to ceiling with collapsing architecture. He also collected Titian and Correggio. He died in 1540.
- Lived: 1500 CE – 1540 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: duke, patron_of_arts
