Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

Aldous Huxley called it the most romantic city in the world; and with an Arabian nights skyline rising above its three encircling lakes, MANTUA ( MANTOVA ) is undeniably evocative. It was the scene of Verdi’s Rigoletto , and its history is one of equally operatic plots, most of them perpetuated by the Gonzagas, one of Renaissance Italy’s richest and most powerful families, who ruled the town for three centuries. Its centre of interlinking cobbled squares retains its medieval aspect, and there are two splendid palaces: the Palazzo Ducale , containing Mantegna’s stunning fresco of the Gonzaga family and court, and Palazzo Te , whose frescoes by the flashy Mannerist Giulio Romano have entertained and outraged generations of visitors with their combination of steamy erotica and illusionistic fantasy.But hazy sunsets reflected in tranquil lakes, and the town’s melodramatic history, are only half the story. Outside the few traffic-free streets of the historic centre the roads are lined with grimy Fascist-era buildings and crowded with cars, while the outskirts have been desecrated by chemical, plastics and paper works that are reputedly responsible for lining the bed of the largest lake, Superiore, with mercury. Nevertheless, the core of the city is still appealing, especially on Thursdays when Piazza Mantegna, Piazza dell’Erbe and the streets around are filled with a large market.

The state of these same streets aroused the ire of a visiting pope in 1459, who complained that Mantua was muddy, marshy, riddled with fever and intensely hot. His host, Lodovico II Gonzaga, was spurred into action: he could do little about the heat (Mantua can still be unbearably hot and mosquito-ridden in summer) but he did give the city an elaborate facelift, ranging from paving the squares and repainting the shops, to engaging Mantegna as court artist and calling in the prestigious architectural theorist Alberti to design the monumental church of Sant’Andrea - one of the most influential buildings of the primeval Renaissance. Lodovico’s successors continued the tradition of artistic patronage, and although most of the thousands of works of art once owned by the Gonzagas are now scattered around Europe, the town still has plenty of relics from the era

The City

The centre of Mantua is prefabricated up of four interlinking squares, the first of which, Piazza Mantegna , is a small, wedge-shaped open space at the end of the arcaded shopping thoroughfare of Corso Umberto . It’s dominated by the deception of Alberti’s church of Sant’Andrea , an unfinished basilica that says a lot about the ego of Lodovico II Gonzaga, who commissioned it. He felt that the existing medieval church was neither impressive enough to represent the splendour of his state nor large enough to hold the droves of people who flocked to Sant’Andrea every Ascension Day to see the holy relic of Christ’s blood which had been found on the site. The relic is still there, and after years of dispute about its authenticity (it was supposed to have been brought to Mantua by the soldier who pierced Christ’s side), Pope Pius II settled the matter in the fifteenth century by declaring it had miraculously cured him of gout.Work started on the church in 1472, with the court architect, Luca Fancelli, somewhat resentfully overseeing Alberti’s plans. There was a bitchy rivalry between the two, and when, on one of his many visits, Alberti fell and hurt a testicle, Fancelli gleefully told him that “God lets men punish themselves in the place where they sin”. Inside, the church is roofed with one immense barrel vault, echoing the triumphal arch of the facade, which gives it a rather cool and calculated feel. The octagonal balustrade at the crossing stands above the crypt where the holy relic is kept in two vases, copies of originals designed by Cellini and stolen by the Austrians in 1846; to see them, ask the sacristan. The painter Mantegna is buried in the first chapel on the left, his tomb topped with a bust of the artist that’s said to be a self-portrait; the wall-paintings in the chapel were designed by the artist and executed by students, one of whom was Correggio.

Opposite Sant’Andrea, sunk below the present level of the adjoining Piazza dell’Erbe , is Mantua’s oldest church, the eleventh-century Rotonda (daily 10am-noon & 2.30-4.30pm), which narrowly escaped destruction under Lodovico’s city-improvement plans, only to be partially demolished in the sixteenth century and used as a courtyard by the surrounding houses. Rebuilt at the beginning of this century and beautifully restored in the last few years, it still contains traces of twelfth- and thirteenth-century frescoes. Piazza dell’Erbe itself is one of the town’s most characterful squares, with a small regular market and cafés and restaurants sheltering in the arcades below the thirteenth-century Palazzo della Ragione , whose impressive wooden-vaulted main hall is viewable during occasional temporary exhibitions. At the north end of the square, a passage leads under the red-brick Broletto , or medieval town hall, into the smaller Piazza Broletto , where you can view two reminders of how “criminals” were treated under the Gonzagas. The bridge to the right has metal rings embedded in its vault, to which victims were chained by the wrists, before being hauled up by a pulley and suspended in mid-air; while on your far left - actually on the corner of Piazza Sordello - the tall medieval Torre della Gabbia has a cage attached in which prisoners were displayed. The Broletto itself is more generous to deserving Mantuans, and is dedicated to the city’s two most famous sons: Virgil, a statue of whom overlooks the square, and Tazio Nuvolari, Italy’s most celebrated racing driver, whose career is mapped in a small museum (April-Oct Tues, Wed & Fri-Sun 10am-1pm & 3.30-6.30pm; rest of year by appointment tel 0376.325.691; L5000/¬2.58).

If you have the time, it’s well worth making a short diversion off Via Broletto up Via Accademia to the eighteenth-century Teatro Scientifico or Bibiena (daily 9.30am-12.30pm & 3-6pm; L4000/¬2.07), designed by Antonio Bibiena, whose brother designed the Bayreuth Opera House. This is a much smaller theatre, at once intimate and splendid, its curving walls lined with boxes calculated to make their inhabitants more conspicuous than the performers. A thirteen-year-old Mozart gave the inaugural concert here: his impression is unrecorded, but his father was fulsome in his praise for the building, writing that he had never in his life seen anything more beautiful. Concerts are still given - details from the theatre or tourist office.

Beyond Piazza Broletto, Piazza Sordello is a large, sombre square, headed by the Baroque deception of the Duomo and flanked by grim crenellated palaces built by the Gonzagas’ predecessors, the Bonalcosi. The duomo conceals a rich interior, designed by Giulio Romano after the church had been gutted by fire. As for the palaces, the two on the left are now owned by the successors of Baldassare Castiglione, a relative of the Gonzagas, who prefabricated himself unpopular at the Mantuan court by setting his seminal handbook of Renaissance behaviour, The Book of the Courtier , in the rival court of Urbino. Opposite, the Palazzo del Capitano and Magna Domus were taken by Luigi Gonzaga when he seized Mantua from the Bonalcosi in 1328, the beginning of three hundred years of Gonzaga rule.

Tags: aldous huxley, court artist, free streets, frescoes, giulio romano, gonzaga family, half the story, mannerist, mantegna, mantua, medieval aspect, monumental church, palazzo ducale, renaissance italy, rigoletto, romantic city, sant andrea, splendid palaces, steamy erotica, tranquil lakes