The Gallery room
Although not the Castle's first, the great Gallery, built by Ercole II (1534-1559), signalled a fundamental step in the process of modernisation that was transforming the old military stronghold into a royal palace worthy of a dynasty.
The fact that it was decorated with frescoes of the newest style that depicted "galleries of maps", the recurring theme in the chateux of French kings (beginning with Fontainebleu), made it so that very soon, even the popes wanted them in their holy palaces. However after Ercole II's death, the duke Alfonso II (1559-1597) had the gallery partitioned by a wall and given a new role as the "library". This probably meant it was used as an archive for ducal files and perhaps as the court chancellery.
Over the centuries, these rooms were changed so many times that they lost all traces of their original identity.
