ROUTE TO DISCOVER THE CARRARESI PALACE AND THE GUARIENTO FRESCOES
The current headquarters of the Galilean Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, once part of the Carrarese Palace, still preserves pieces of aniconic decoration present in the rooms on the ground floor and the valuable fresco cycle of the Chapel.
In the first case, these are important fragments not only for their variety, but also for some novelties in the motifs such as “tiled” wallpapers of Islamic inspiration, spread in the Padua area by Giotto’s followers, with the crests and chariots, the coat of arms of the Carrarese lordship , elegant racemes and noble crowns, and also fake thick arches on shelves in the shape of female heads.
This decoration expresses great refinement and wealth, and the image of the power of the Carrarese Lordship which the Palace certainly had to restore to anyone who visited it.
In addition to the pieces of decoration in the rooms on the ground floor, the other most important frescoes are preserved on the north wall of the Meeting Room, part of the cycle with the Stories of the Old Testament painted by Guariento which continues with two other fresco pieces detached from the wall in front of.
Within the series, Guariento’s frescoes represent the first work of a court painter closely linked to the patronage of the Signoria: the narrative taste, which characterizes all the Paduan pictorial cycles, here takes on a particular courtly dimension, which allows it to be fully inserted into the tradition of Giotto’s fresco, but according to his personal interpretation.
In the Chapel of the Royal Palace, Guariento refines his research on perspective in a Gothic key, placing greater care in the rendering of the architecture and furnishing elements with particular attention to detail.
For the first time, Guariento introduces a new way of representing the story: each episode is not painted isolated within a box, but is combined with other scenes in a single space. The narrative sequence therefore develops without interruption.
