Sculptures of antiquity

The history of the outstanding collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures - housed at the City Museum - is a complex one. Most of the objects come from the collections of Vespasiano Gonzaga, the nobleman of Sabbioneta who is believed by some to have been the first Italian to design a museum. This bequest, later distributed in various places, was incompletely added to at the time by the Empress Maria Theresa, forming one of the essential collections of the Patrio Museum. But what is more significant is the relationship between the Renaissance and a taste for antiquity. This was so great that Isabella d'Este and her descendants, driven by an insatiable desire for works of art, looked high and wide for artefacts both from the ancient world and from more recent times. Thus, in the halls of today's museum, that spirit that brought about priceless masterpieces by drawing on the models of antiquity, lives on.