Italy’s Renaissance Courts

october 2025
tour leader tba

 

*** Preliminary Itinerary ***

Get to know northern Italy’s smaller Renaissance centres that still punch above their weight, from courtly Ferrara and Mantua to Giotto’s Padua and magical Urbino

 
 

OVERVIEW

Northern Italy boasts outstanding art, from Ravenna’s UNESCO-listed mosaics to Giotto’s frescoes in Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel. Renaissance masterpieces, such as Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation, are often found in remote but attractive places, from the Apennine foothills to the elegant provincial centres of the Po Valley.

Over 16 days, this tour traces the changing art and architecture of the Renaissance in Padua, Ferrara, Mantua and Urbino. Growing from small city-states into major cultural centres, these courts vyed with one another to produce magnificent buildings and innovative art. In Ravenna and Padua, we understand the legacy of Byzantine mosaics and medieval frescoes for Mantegna in Mantua and Piero della Francesca in Urbino. In Ferrara, we explore the impact of Flemish painting, and in the Euganean Hills we catch a glimpse of the baroque transformations to come.

 
 
 

Highlights

  • Appreciate Renaissance art’s Byzantine roots, in UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ravenna

  • Understand the medieval transformations in Italian art and architecture, from Pomposa Abbey to Giotto’s outstanding frescoes for Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel

  • Spend three nights in Urbino, the perfectly-formed Renaissance eyrie of Federico da Montefeltro

  • Admire the trend-setting art and architecture of Ferrara, one of Renaissance Italy’s most influential cultural capitals

  • Meet the Gonzaga in Mantua’s Camera degli Sposi and at the playful Palazzo Te

  • Enjoy the fine landscapes of northern Italy, from Le Marche’s mountains to the spa towns of the Euganean Hills

 
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