Verona - Mantova Travel Guides | Verona | Sub Regions | Verona - Mantova

Almost entirely surrounded by water, Mantova, 35 km south of Verona, is an attractive and evocative place, at least around the network of piazzas that make up the centre of the city. The city has origins deep in the past, with prehistoric settlements beside its lakes. At the end of the first millennium the Canossa family balanced pressure from Church and Empire to make the town an important base in the middle of the Po plain. The city's golden age came under the three hundred years of rule by the Gonzaga family. One of the richest and most important patrons of the Renaissance, they ruled from the 14th until the 17th centuries.

Coming from the south the first part of the old centre you meet is piazza Mantegna, site of the towering Basilica di Sant’Andrea. This leads into piazza Erbe, still home to a weekly market, and on across piazza Broletto to piazza Sordello, the grandest of Mantova’s piazzas. At the northern end of this series of cobbled open spaces is the Palazzo Ducale, the monumental 14th-century complex of the Gonzaga family, incorporating the sturdy Castello di San Giorgio and Mantegna’s stunning masterpiece of Renaissance painting the Camera degli Sposi, as well as works by Raphael, Pisanello, Rubens and Giulio Romano. Romano was also responsible for both the building and decoration of the grandiose Palazzo Te, with its dramatic frescoes, particularly in the Sala dei Giganti. Arriving at the station, the city centre is diagonally left, along via Solferino e San Martino and its continuations.

Sights

One-time commercial hub of the city, piazza Erbe still has a fruit and vegetable stall, and a bigger market every Thursday morning. Nowadays it’s more given over to restaurants and cafés, nestled into its porticoes and spilling out into the open. There is also a clock tower with a beautiful astrological clock, the Palazzo della Ragione, built in 1250, and the Rotunda di San Lorenzo (Mon-Fri 1000-1300, 1500-1800, Sat and Sun 1000-1800. Free), an atmospheric small round church, the oldest in Mantova, dating from the second half of the 11th century. The excellent tourist information centre is also here, on the corner with piazza Mantegna.

Museo Tazio Nuvolari e Learco Guerra, piazza Broletto 9, T 0376 327929. Tue, Wed, Fri-Sun 1000-1300, 1530-1830. E3.

Through porticoes and arches, the way north through the centre of Mantova opens out again in piazza Broletto, with more palaces, the Arengario, complete with arch, and the Palazzo del Podestà. Set into the latter is a seated 13th-century statue of Virgil, the classical poet whom the city claims as its own. This statue is traditionally known as Vecia Mantua, the personification of the ancient city. New arrivals to the city are supposed to come and pay their respects to him. Next door the Museo Tazio Nuvolari e Learco Guerra is a homage to the two eponymous Mantuan motorcycle champions.

The biggest and grandest of Mantua’s piazzas, piazza Sordello, to the north of piazza Broletto, contains, in its northern end, the Duomo, and, to its east, the enormous Palazzo Ducale complex . As you walk from the arch along the pavement known as the listone to the Duomo you also pass, in turn, the 13th-century Palazzo Bonacolsi, also known as the Palazzo Castiglioni, and the 18th-century Palazzo Bianchi, home of the bishop.

piazza Sordello, T/F 0376 224832. Tue-Sun, 0845-1915. Ticket office closes 1830. E6.50.

The Palazzo Ducale is more a conglomeration of buildings than a conventional palace. Built between the 12th and 17th centuries, the complex covers 34,000 sq m and is an awesome illustration of the wealth of the Gonzaga family, whose power base it was. The porticoed buildings facing piazza Sordello are the oldest remaining: the Magna Domus and the Palazzo del Capitano were built by Guido Bonacolsi, Lord of Mantua, at the beginning of the 14th century. The visitors' entrance to the palace is here, under the arches. The solidly built Castello di San Giorgio, facing the lake at the northeast corner of the old city, dates from the end of the 14th century and was built for Francesco I Gonzaga. The palace has around 500 rooms, and, despite the Habsburgs removing 80 works of art in 1630, some excellent paintings, frescoes and tapestries, including works by Raphael and Pisanello. The highlight, however, is Mantegna's extraordinary frescoed Camera Picta, more usually known as the Camera degli Sposi (room of the married couple), although its original owner, Lodovico, supposedly slept there alone. Painted between 1465 and 1474, Mantegna's masterpiece depicts family and friends of Lodovico, Emperor Frederik III of the Habsburg Empire, King Christian I of Denmark, buildings, landscapes, animals and even, among the decoration on a pilaster, a self-portrait of Mantegna himself.

viale Te, T 0376 323266. Mon 1300-1800, Tue-Sun 0900-1800. Ticket office closes 1730. E8.

Well signposted from the centre of the city (as “Percorso del Principe”, or path of the prince), Palazzo Te is a disappointingly plain half-hour walk to the south. It was built by Giulio Romano as a palace for the Gonzago family. A fine example of a Renaissance villa, Palazzo Te was built between 1525 and 1535. It once stood on an island known as the Te. The artist given the job of frescoing the palace, Romano, apprenticed in Raphael’s studio and was considered his finest heir. Federico Gonzago stayed infrequently, however, and the building was used mainly for state occasions, including two visits by Charles V of Spain.

Impressively grand, the palace is known primarily today for its internal decoration, particularly that of the so-called Camera dei Giganti. Romano's frescoes illustrate the myth of the giants being hurled down the mountain by Jupiter for having dared to try to climb Olympus. Dickens complained that the paintings were grotesque, though this seems to be the intention: there are twisted ogres, and the scale and perspective looking up overwhelms and disguises the form of the room. Up in the clouds of Olympus, however, the gods look comparatively normal.

The Camera di Amore e Psiche is another highlight, and the Camera di Cavalli demonstrates the Gonzaga obsession with horses.

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