Combining the elegance of the Italian Renaissance with the first hints of a playful and disconcerting Mannerism, this sumptuous villa was built by Giulio Romano as a pleasure palace for Federico II Gonzaga between 1525 and 1535, following the plan of a Roman villa. The decoration alternates between a freely sensual, even graphic, eroticism and the use of political symbols. The result is a succession of rooms which are both ordered and capricious and which are full of all kinds of surprises.