Galeazzo Maria Sforza and the Castello di Pavia, 1469

Abstract

A unique group of documents allows a precise reconstruction of two floors of the Visconti-Sforza castle in Pavia as it existed in August 1469. The building itself has been badly damaged, but these records include a survey of the condition of the ground floor and piano nobile, an elaborate program of new fresco decorations, and an estimate of their cost. The new painting scheme was designed by the fifth duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and called for both the traditional iconography of courtly hunts and games and unusual scenes such as the duke getting dressed. Numerous portraits are specified, demonstrating the political nature of this large-scale project of redecoration. The Milanese evidence suggests that surviving frescoes such as Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi in Mantua were not as unusual as they now appear.

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Notes on contributors

Evelyn Samuels Welch

Evelyn Samuels Welch's studies on aspects of Lombard art and the Sforza court have appeared in the Burlington Magazine, Arte lombarda, and Renaissance Studies. She is at work on a book dealing with 15th-century Italian court politics and patronage. [Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1, England]