Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento Italia Part 1

Last weekend, I went to Trent to check out the Buonoconsiglio Castle.  In one of the towers is a very famous fresco of an early 15th Century snowball fight.  :-)   It's easy to understand why they'd depict snow given the location.  It's high up in the Alps.  The picture above is looking out from the castle towards the mountains.  

The castle itself.  It's actually even bigger than it looks here.   It was a maze to get through but there were a lot of neat paintings and artifacts through out.  I'll post some of them here and give a link to the rest of my photos in the last part of this series of blog posts.   

The castle was owned by the prince-bishops of Trento which, during the 13th-16th Century, was part of the Holy Roman Empire.  However, due to how close it is to both Milan and Venice, you see a lot of influences from those places as well.  It's an interesting mix of artwork and styles.

The above courtyard ended up being really neat.  The ceiling of the "loggia" is a series of Frescos by Gerolamo Romanio.  He was a painter through the first half of the 16th Century known mostly in the Venetian (Veneto) region.   The paintings in the loggia are all pretty clearly 1520's/1530's Venetian.    

Looking to the left

Looking to the right

Towards the hall where the staircase is

The lady in the forefront is wearing a golden hued dress with a pinked, high neckline.   Really, that isn't her chemise or partlet.  If you click on the image, you can see the button to the collar of the dress and tell that it's all part of the dress.  She's wearing a more German style hat although the sleeves and overall impression of the gown is much more Venetian.   

The lady to the right in this one has a much more typical Venetian style dress.  However, her chemise is a high necked one and she has her sleeves rolled up.  Also, her coif!  Much more German in style than Venetian. 

This one, I couldn't get a good image of.  The lady somewhat towards the center left is wearing a green dress, a balzo, and has her chemise sleeves rolled up.  All of which is typical Italian.  However, the lady on the far left, has a typical Venetian gown with a more German style hat.  

A slightly better picture of the lady with the German hat.  

A bigger image of the lady with the balzo and green dress.  

This one is pretty typical late 1520's/early 1530's Venetian.  The large puffs at the top of the sleeves with the more fitted lower sleeve and even the non-existent neckline are pretty normal for some of the more daring ladies in Veneto.  However, this might be an attempt at Lucretia who stabbed herself in the heart due to being raped.   It's a very common painting motif in the Renaissance. 

The lute players appear almost fantastical with the feathers and flowing gowns.  However, this too is a mix of the German and Italian styles.  The lady has a more German neckline while the dress, overall, is more Venetian in style.  

Judith in her maid is another very common theme in Renaissance paintings.  The maid's dress is in keeping with the 1530s Venetian styles but Judith's dress is interesting.  It opens at the front and has lacing but the sleeves and the cut appear almost Turkish.  Judith is wearing what appears to be cloth of gold as well and her head covering appears almost Flemish or English.  

This lady was hidden on the way up the staircase.  Her pinked white dress is typical 1520'sVenetian in cut.  You can see green through the pinking that matches her German style hat.  Her chemise is not the usual gathered neckline with most Venetians.  It's very smooth, meaning it was probably cut in a more Flemish/English/French manner.  

I couldn't get a good photo of the gentleman in the green outfit.  He has a gathered neckline which did come back briefly in the 1530's.  

This is the hallway next to the staircase.  It was pretty magnificent on it's own.  

Even with the guys, you see the mix of German and Italian influence.  The gentleman closest to us has a German style hat with some elements of Venetian influence in his doublet.  The man hiding in the background with the red hat is actually typically of the Veneto area.  

The stairwell down 

Above one of the doors before the stairwell

I love her sleeves.  Yes, it's probably not what was really worn but the dags!!!

Blurry photo of the stairwell

I need to go back and get a better photo of this one because the lady in the gold dress is also wearing what looks like a balzo.  It only appears to go back as much as French Hood, really.   Her dress, itself, is very typical late 1520's/early 1530's Venetian. 

I wanted to get a photo of the lady above them as well.

Next, I'll post about the Eagle Tower that was built in the 14th Century.   There is a lot of neat paintings in there and on the way leading to the tower.