A proclamation from the building commissioner of Sabbioneta, ordering the final cleanup and rebuilding of houses damaged in a river flood of 1595, signed by Nicolo Dondi and issued on 16 July 1602.

A proclamation from the building commissioner of Sabbioneta, ordering the final cleanup and rebuilding of houses damaged in a river flood of 1595, signed by Nicolo Dondi and issued on 16 July 1602.

In the 1550s, Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna, duke of Sabbioneta, near Mantua, began to turn the small village of Sabbioneta, which was the site of his summer palace, into a model city. The Sabbioneta Documents collection is a volume of 172 documents issued by or concerning this planned city from 1537 to 1778 but dating mainly from the 1570s through the early 17th century— proclamations, financial accounts, letters, contracts, payment orders, narratives, and official documents. They include a complete cost accounting of the Giardino della Fontana, a list of current expenses for the upkeep of the Church of the Incoronata, records of payments made to artists, stonemasons, freight-haulers, the Duke's German Guard and his courtiers. It is possible to determine from the records the source of materials for many public buildings in the city, the status of traveling players (housed at the same level of accommodation as carpenters), the administrative difficulties of extensive building in an occupied city (proclamations requesting people to keep off the streets which are under construction and forbidding them from stealing building materials), and a great many other details of this major project.

Acquired from Bernard M. Rosenthal.

MS E9, document 127