The Duke's Palace in Mantua is a complex of buildings, realized between the beginning of the XIVth century and the mid XVIth century,when Gonzaga's power is in decline. The overall is constituted of approximately 500 rooms and covers approximately 34.000 square meters. The greatest artists of those centuries contributed to the realization of this monumental complex, they were called from Gonzaga family who wanted to increase the importance of their royal palace.

Saint George castle, erected in 1395 by Bartolino from Novara, commissioned by Francis 1st Gonzaga, shows an austere but elegant quadrangular size, lightened from the scarp walls and the wide Ghibelline crenellation. Some elements, as the tower lacking in crenellation and the capitals used as arches to constitute a part of the inner courtyard (probably ruins of a precedent building), show that Bartolino has probably operated on a already existing structure. It was Luca Fancelli in 1459, on behalf of Ludovico IInd, to transform this defensive building in a refined residence. He moved just before the Council indicted here by Pope Pius IInd in order to announce the crusade against the Turks. The magnificence of the castle is the masterpiece of the great painter Andrea Mantegna who painted here his own most important fresco.

The "Camera degli Sposi" (Wedding Chamber) is located in the northeastern tower of the Castle. Painted by Andrea Mantegna during 9 long years (from 1465 to 1474 as it is testified from a writing on the east window and from an engraving on the golden plate with which the painter dedicates its masterpiece to the marquises of Mantua).