The Domus Nova (Latin: "New House") was built in 1480-1484 by Luca Fancelli. Later, during the reign of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga, the edifice was renovated, creating the current Appartamento Ducale ("Ducal Apartment"), under the design of Cremonese artist and architect Antonio Maria Viani, who worked for the Gonzaga from 1595.
The Galleria Nuova is a corridor built in 1778 by Giuseppe Piermarini to connect the Guastalla apartment to the Ducal apartment. It houses several altarpieces from the early 16th century to the late 18th century by Francesco Borgani, Carlo Bononi, Spagnoletto and others. The gallery ends with the huge Sala degli Arcieri ("Room of the Archers"), once housing the apartment of Duke Vincenzo. It is famous for an altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens (1605), originally part of a triptych for the church of Santissima Trinità in the city, portraying the Gonzaga Family in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. Other paintings from churches and monasteries now suppressed are also exhibited. The hall is followed by the Galleria degli Specchi ("Mirrors Gallery"): it was built as an open loggia under Vincenzo I, with a neoclassicist decoration added in 1773-1779. The vault is frescoed by two pupils of Guido Reni.
Duke Ferdinand commissioned Viani a reproduction in scale of the Scala Santa of St. John Lateran in Rome, under his apartment in the Domus Nova. Until 1979 this sector was known as "Apartment of the Dwarves", allegedly built to house dwarves of the Mantuan court, until Italian art historian Renato Berzaghi proved that it was just a reproduction of the Roman original.
Read more about this topic: Ducal Palace, Mantua