Mantova, ringed by artificial lakes on three sides, holds one of the densest concentrations of Renaissance art and architecture in northern Italy. Paired in a single UNESCO listing with Sabbioneta, the ideal city Vespasiano Gonzaga built from nothing, it repays a slow, unhurried visit.
At a glance
Mantova and Sabbioneta form a joint UNESCO World Heritage listing inscribed in 2008. Mantova is the larger historic city, built on a site enclosed by three artificial lakes formed in the 12th century by damming the Mincio river. Sabbioneta lies some 35 kilometres to the southeast, a much smaller planned town laid out within hexagonal walls.
Mantova was ruled by the Gonzaga family from 1328 to 1708. Originally condottieri, mercenary captains, the Gonzaga rose to become Marquesses in 1433 and Dukes in 1530, and over four centuries they employed an unbroken succession of major artists, including Pisanello, Mantegna, Alberti, Giulio Romano and Rubens.
Key facts
- Ruling dynasty: the Gonzaga, who governed Mantova from 1328 to 1708, succeeding the Bonacolsi.
- Camera degli Sposi: fresco cycle by Andrea Mantegna, painted 1465–1474, in the Castle of San Giorgio within the Palazzo Ducale.
- Sant’Andrea: church designed by Alberti, begun 1472, with a facade completed in 1488 and an interior vault finished much later, in 1732, by Filippo Juvara.
- Palazzo Te: built and decorated by Giulio Romano between 1524 and 1546, home to the Sala dei Giganti.
- Sabbioneta: planned town built from scratch by Vespasiano Gonzaga in the second half of the 16th century, including the Teatro Olimpico of 1588–1590.
History
Mantova’s civic identity has long been bound up with the poet Virgil, said to have been born nearby at Andes, now identified with the village of Pietole. Dante names Virgil as the Mantovan poet in the first canto of the Inferno, and the city has claimed him as its symbol since Roman times, marking the association with a nineteenth-century statue in the Piazza Virgiliana.
The Gonzaga, who took power from the Bonacolsi in 1328, built their reputation through sustained patronage rather than birthright. Pisanello worked as court painter from 1422 to 1448, followed by Mantegna from 1460 to 1506, whose Camera degli Sposi was painted between 1465 and 1474. Alberti designed Sant’Andrea from 1470, with construction beginning in 1472 after his death. Giulio Romano worked for the Gonzaga from 1524 to 1546, and Rubens served as court painter from 1600 to 1608, producing three triptychs for the family chapel that are now dispersed between Mantova, Brussels and the Uffizi.
In 1627–1628 Charles I of England purchased much of the Gonzaga painting collection, including Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar and numerous works by Rubens; many of these pieces remain in the British Royal Collection or in British museums. In 1797 Napoleon took Mantova after an eight-month siege, the only time in the city’s history that it was conquered, despite having withstood fourteen sieges thanks to its lake defences and walls. Sabbioneta was built as a planned city by Vespasiano Gonzaga from the 1550s to the 1590s, laid out on a single orthogonal grid within hexagonal walls and centred on the Teatro Olimpico, completed in 1590. The two towns were jointly inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2008, under reference 1287.
What you see
The Palazzo Ducale on Piazza Sordello is the most complex site to visit, a vast complex of around five hundred rooms built up over four centuries, now run as a museum with a set route through the state apartments. Among the highlights is the Sala del Pisanello, containing an unfinished tournament fresco of around 1447 in which the underlying preparatory drawing is visible through thin plaster. The Camera degli Sposi, Mantegna’s painted chamber in the Castle of San Giorgio, combines a court scene showing Ludovico Gonzaga and his family, including his wife Barbara of Brandenburg, a court dwarf and a dog named Rubino, with a ceiling oculus that was the first painted illusionistic ceiling of its kind, a technique that shaped ceiling painting for the two centuries that followed.
Sant’Andrea, on Piazza Andrea Mantegna, is free to enter and holds a single wide barrel-vaulted nave that became a model for later church design. Palazzo Te, Giulio Romano’s Mannerist masterpiece, contains the Sala dei Giganti, a room roughly fifteen metres square in which painted giants appear to collapse across the walls, floor and ceiling in a single continuous scene.
Practical information
- Booking: entry to the Camera degli Sposi is by timed slot and should be arranged well in advance through the official Palazzo Ducale ticketing channel, Coopculture.
- Time needed: the Palazzo Ducale route takes at least two hours, and the Camera degli Sposi itself is worth well more than its allotted slot.
- What to bring: binoculars help for viewing the ceiling oculus of the Camera degli Sposi.
- Sant’Andrea: free entry.
Getting there
Mantova sits in Lombardia, with Sabbioneta around 35 kilometres to the southeast. The historic centre of Mantova is compact and walkable, bordered on three sides by artificial lakes, and the main sites, the Palazzo Ducale, Sant’Andrea and Palazzo Te, are all within the old town.
Nearby
- Sabbioneta — about 35 kilometres southeast of Mantova, the planned Renaissance town built by Vespasiano Gonzaga, with its hexagonal walls and the Teatro Olimpico.
- Pietole di Virgilio — around 6 kilometres from Mantova, identified with the ancient village of Andes, the traditional birthplace of Virgil.
Sources
- Archivio di Stato di Mantova
- Coopculture
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