Just 50 km from Verona is Mantua, a city that is really worth a visit. Mantua is located in Lombardy. Visiting it you can breathe a particular atmosphere: a border place. It is a Lombard city, on the border with Veneto but with Emilian customs and traditions typical of the Po valley.
The greatness of the city can be traced back to the Middle Ages and to the most important family: the GONZAGA, who reigned over the city from 1200 to 1700.
Mantua is a city rich in history and culture and a day is not enough to visit it. So we will try here to intrigue you, give you ideas rather than provide an exhaustive explanation of the city.
Reaching the city from the north, you will find an unexpected vision: of the lakes.
They are nothing more than water works dating back to the 12th century when the hydraulic engineer Alberto Pitentino, on behalf of the Municipality of Mantua, organized a defense system of the city, taking care of the arrangement of the Mincio river so as to completely surround the inhabited center with four water mirrors;
Mantua, in fact, was an island.
Now the lakes are navigable and numerous species of aquatic fauna and flora unusual for these areas and latitudes can be seen.
There are so many monuments to visit and we recommend that you go with an idea of what to visit. However, it is possible to walk along a single street where you will see the Cathedral of San Pietro, with its facade in white Carrara marble. (Inside, the body of Sant’Anselmo, patron saint of the city is preserved under the main altar. The Cathedral, located in the monumental Piazza Sordello, is the bishopric of Mantua.
Proceeding south, the Basilica of Sant’Andrea, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, built starting in 1472. It took 328 years to complete the construction but seeing him it will be easy to understand why!
NOTE: In one of the chapels there is the funeral monument of Andrea Mantegna, painter of the Gonzaga court.
The Rotonda di San Lorenzo is the oldest church in the city, built in the 11th century. With a round central plan, the Rotonda di San Lorenzo is located at a lower level than Piazza delle Erbe and preserves inside a women’s gallery and traces of Byzantine school frescoes.
A history common to that of many lordships of municipal Italy, the Gonzaga family, who dominated the city, gathered around it numerous artists including ANDREA MANTEGNA, an important Italian painter and engraver of the 16th century.
Andrea Mantegna (1431 –1506), painter of perspective, in 1460 moved with the whole family to Mantua as an official court painter, living at the Gonzaga court until his death.
If Mantua was governed by the Gonzaga family, in Verona there were the Scaligeri, in Florence the Medici, in Ferrara the Estensi, in Milan the Sforza, in Vicenza the Ezzelini. EVERY FAMILY COMPETED TO GET THE BEST ARTISTS, COMMISSIONING DIFFERENT WORKS, SYMBOL OF PRESTIGE AND POWER OF THE FAMILY!
… that’s why Italy is so rich in works of art!
Mantua was also the birthplace of the greatest Latin poet: VIRGILIO. Born in 70 BC the poet reached the pinnacle of his artistic production with the ENEID, the most important epic and celebratory poem of antiquity (together with the ILLIAD and the ODYSSEY) which has the Trojan hero Aeneas as its protagonist.
A city with so much history, it is equally so in GASTRONOMIC terms.
Mantuan cuisine is very particular and different from that of Verona. But it deserves to try it. Among the typical dishes TORTELLI ALLA PUCCA, FRIED GNOCCO and COPPA (a very particular cured meat), MUSTARDS in combination with boiled meats, the typical sweets SBRISOLONA, TAGLIATELLA and ELVEZIA (originally from the Putscher family of Swiss confectioners who had moved to Lombardy but who still felt a lot of homesickness).
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From a study conducted on 110 Italian provinces on the quality of life, Mantua was ranked third, after Trento and Bolzano among the Italian cities where you live best (survey on the Quality of life conducted by the La Sapienza University of Rome for Italy Today) .
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Since 2008, the city together with Sabbioneta, both united by the legacy left to them by the Gonzagas (who made them one of the main centers of the Italian Renaissance) has become a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE.
