MACA – MANTOVA COLLEZIONI ANTICHE

Built at the behest of Francesco II Gonzaga, the palace was destined to house the imposing paintings of the Triumphs of Caesar, by Andrea Mantegna, and to become the prince's private residence for his leisure activities. Situated in the southern part of the city in an area adjacent to the Te island, and to the stables for horses built a few years earlier, the building was already characterised by the presence of a large open loggia on the northern side that hosted theatrical performances organised especially during the Carnival period.
In addition to the paved courtyard, rich gardens with labyrinths of hedges and cedar and orange trees developed up to the nearby Casa del Mantegna.
From the end of the 16th century, the history of Palazzo San Sebastiano was very troubled.
During the 17th century, the building, although still in use, began to be abandoned. Having sold the Trionfi (now at Hampton Court, London), Vincenzo I Gonzaga had some of the valuable gilded ceilings removed to decorate his new flats in the Ducal Palace, and it began to be inhabited only occasionally by visiting guests or by the Gonzaga cadet branches. In later centuries the building, emptied of all its precious furnishings, was used as a prison, barracks and lazaret.
In the 20th century, the Palazzo experienced further deterioration, a victim of urban redevelopment that mutilated and compromised its structure. Part of the building, together with the ancient Porta Pusterla, was demolished at the beginning of the century to allow cars to pass through, and the gardens were reduced in size in the 1920s and 1930s to make way for condominiums.
The restoration campaign begun in 1995 brought back the Renaissance decorations and restored its architectural value, making it the ideal location for the new museum MACA - Mantua Antique Collections dedicated to four Mantuan personalities who contributed to the growth of the city's identity: Francesco II and Vespasiano Gonzaga with classical antiquities, Giuseppe Acerbi with the collection of ancient Egyptian, Islamic and ethnological materials, Ugo Sissa with the Mesopotamian collection.