Renaissance Bronzes’s Rooms

You are now in the first "Renaissance Bronze’s room". They are attributed to authors from the Padua school and house the collection of bronzes and Renaissance plates. Padua was one of the most receptive centres of the taste for the bronze figures thanks to the presence of Donatello who moved there in 1443; and the advent, later, of the workshop of Andrea Briosco called Riccio. Some of Briosco’s pieces are displayed here. The two rooms house a rich collection of bronze plaques, which were not created as art objects, but were initially used as garment ornaments. Losing this function, they kept that of decorations of the furniture of the noble residences, of the ecclesiastical furnishings and of the covers of particularly valuable books. 

The collection of this Museum comes from the “Kunst-und Wunderkammer” of Francesco Calzolari, acquired in Verona in the late 16th century, and then merged into the seventeenth-century museum of Ludovico Moscardo.

Of particular importance is the Moses by Jacopo Sansovino, exhibited inside the showcase, derived from the famous statue of Michelangelo in the Roman church of St. Peter in Chains.

Trumeau

You can notice that the room houses a "trumeau" with drawers and doors decorated with sheets of paper painted in lean tempera, exemplary of the so-called Arte Povera, dating to the first half of the eighteenth century and Central European taste.

Maps on the wall

You surely have noticed that on the walls are displayed two maps: the first of 1774: “Stable/ of / Guastalla”, represents a large portion of the Veronese territory south-east of Lake Garda, the estate of Guastalla di Sona, owned by the Marquis Giorgio Spolverini-dal Verme (see the following caption). The second: watercoloured by Sebastiano Alberti in 1683, is a map of the Grezzano estate, between Villafranca Veronese and the fortress of Nogarole, owned by the Canossa family, bordering the feud of San Zeno in Mozzo (Mozzecane - Verona) of the Miniscalchi.

Map of Stabile di Guastalla

The drawing shows all the land of the vast estate of Guastalla di Sona in 1774, southeast of Lake Garda, then owned by the Marquis Giorgio Spolverini-dal Verme.

In the middle of the upper margin, inside a cartouche, is the title of the drawing: Stable / of / Guastalla. Symmetrically, in the lower margin, is the coat of arms of Spolverini-dal Verme.

Of particular interest is the representation of the compass painted in the middle of the map: decorated with a bouquet of flowers, and also legible as wind rose, the ring of the needle watercoloured in blue actually indicates the initial letter “O” of ostro, that is the hot and damp wind from the South.

Four cartouches describe the intended use of the fields, for a total of 2478 Verona fields.

Now if you go on with your visit, in front of this room you will see the second Renaissance Bronzes’ room in which you will find other items of this bronze collection. 

Between the two single-lancet windows you can observe a Franco-Flemish allegorical board dating back to the mid-sixteenth century: the meaning of the scene is written in the top right corner: “Le jeu, la femme, le vin friant / font l’homme povre tout en riant” (the game, the woman, the sparkling wine / make the man poor while he laughs).
On the opposite wall you can see a portrait of Marie Gabrielle d’Harcourt-Beuvron by Erasmus II Quellinus (1744).
The portrait was created on the occasion of her monastic vows.
If you look closer, you will see the date “1744”, year of her monastic vows, painted on the dog’s collar.
The dog represents fidelity, while the sheep are symbol of meekness.
On the background, the Flemish city and the pairs of lovers represent what the girl will leave behind in order to devote herself to a chaste life.