Italy’s Renaissance Courts

September 2026
Dr LOUISE MARSHALL

*** 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.

TOUR LEADER

Dr Louise Marshall is an art historian, with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and a research specialisation in Italian art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. She is an honorary senior lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Sydney, where she taught for over thirty years.

Louise is a popular lecturer on Italian art history and has frequently presented on the subject at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, including in conjunction with the Italian Institute of Culture (Sydney), and at the National Gallery of Victoria. She has been invited to speak at international conferences in Europe and North America, and has often been interviewed as a specialist on Italian art by ABC Radio National.

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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