The story
A small canvas on the noble floor of the Palazzo dei Principi is the reason most visitors climb the stairs. Andrea Mantegna, court painter to the Gonzaga family in nearby Mantua, painted this Christ the Redeemer in 1493. Christ appears half-length inside a red frame that carries the words he spoke to the apostles on the water, "It is I, be not afraid." It is one of the few paintings Mantegna dated in those years, and it has come through many repaintings and cleanings.
The palace was built in the early 16th century for the da Correggio family, who ruled the town. Around the Mantegna, the civic museum keeps three small works attributed to the town's most famous son, Antonio Allegri, the painter known simply as Correggio. There are also nine Flemish tapestries woven in Brussels in the late 16th century, coins from the old Correggio mint and archaeological finds from the surrounding plain.
