Mantua is the perfect Italian city and makes a great place to visit.
Famous for its architectural treasures, elegant palaces and the medieval and Renaissance cityscapes.
Its compact historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage site with a dense concentration of
historic buildings, some of which date back to the Middle Ages, and others reflect the
strong Renaissance tradition of town planning.
These historic sites are so close together, concentrated around three adjacent piazzas,
making it very easy to see a lot in a short period of time with a minimal amount of walking.
Located in the Lombardy region in the north of Italy, even though Mantua is inland, it's
surrounded by water including three lakes and a canal, with a green park along the lakeshore,
as you'll see more of later.
This is the ideal city for discovering on foot where it is so easy to get around while
exploring these endlessly fascinating sites.
This visit is extra special because you will be enjoying a walking tour with a local expert.
My name is Giacomo Cecchin.
I live here in Mantua.
I wrote a book over the town.
I do a TV show about the history of the town, but my best job is a tourist guide and what
I like most is to tell the stories about Mantua because Mantua is one of the most incredible
towns in Italy.
When you walk in Mantua, it's just like telling all the history of Italy and of Mantua in
a nutshell.
And yeah, and then sit down for a spritz, and you can see the people walking by.
And this is one of the most incredible things to do in Italy, because Italians, they are
people who live their life in a wonderful way.
We're going to take a walking tour of Mantua with our guide, Giacomo.
We're starting out in front of the Duomo, and Giacomo is going to take us all around
through the highlights of the historic center.
Right?
Right, yes, the town.
Where are we going to go?
We are going to the center of the town, because this is a very small town.
But in Italy you can do a walking tour during the centuries.
And so here you can go from the Gothic, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance times.
It's one of the most incredible towns in Italy, not very well known.
Also, when the tourists came to Mantua in the 18th century, Mantua was not so important
as Florence and Venice or other towns.
But we should say that nowadays it's the best way to experience the Renaissance times in
Italy.
We say Mantua in English.
Yes, but here it's Mantova.
Mantova, Mantova.
You know, the town is not as well-known as Florence and Venice and Rome.
Yes, it's true.
But it ranks right up in the top five of northern Italy.
And we're going to find out why.
with Giacomo, who will tell us all about it.
So we are in Piazza Sordello, Sordello Square.
Here is the center of the political power and of the religion power inside the town.
So it's for visitors that this square is center to the history of Mantua.
We'll show you more of this piazza and take a look inside the Duke’s Palace later in
the program.
But first, we have more to show you about the streets and other features of this beautiful
city.
This is a map, a map of Mantua and is interesting to see that there is the river.
The Mincio River that comes out from the Garda lake and goes to the Po river.
But for the Mantuan people, this is not a river.
There are three lakes, the upper lake, the middle lake and the lower lake.
They are the three lakes of us around Mantua.
These three artificial lakes were created during the 12th century by diverting the river
and damming it up to create a defense system for the city, like a large moat all around
it.
Now it's a popular park and boating area.
We are going to see the town of the Middle Ages with the Palazzo del Podestà, Palazzo
della Ragione, the Clock Tower.
And we are going to see the place where the Mantua people go to the market and where there
is the real living inside the city of Mantua.
So that is the main gate of the ancient town, the gate of Saint Peter.
It was considered the main gate because the walls of the town where here.
This is the tower of the Palazzo Podestà, the tower of the commune.
And it was again a prison with a clock.
And then in the Piazza Broletto we are going to see one of our most important poets born
in Mantua, that is to say, Virgil, the Roman poet, and there is a famous statue here in
Piazza Broletto.
And Virgil was very famous during the Roman times, but also during the Middle Ages.
Tourists came to Mantua for Virgil.
This is the main street of the town because you have a lot of porticos, and the people
usually walk all around because they do aperitivo, they do a lot of conversation.
Italian love to speak, to tell a story to each other.
In Italian it is called the “vasca”.
It is like a swimming pool when you go up all around and you do these things.
And the porticos are typical of this town.
And also the town of another part of the northern part of Italy, because you can walk under
the portico with bad weather.
And so it's very useful also for all the shops on the street.
And they extended the building out.
Yes, yes, it's, yes, for this reason because they built the porticos, because they can
build a floor larger than the previous one.
And then we should say at this place that is private and public because the private
have to keep clean of the porticos.
But it is a place where everyone can walk.
The real center of the town is this this square Piazza Erbe, the square where you have a market
of a fruit and vegetable, not the Piazza Sordello.
The piazza is an Italian invention because you can do market, and where you can meet
people.
You can have a relationship with people.
The square in Mantua are very close because the town is very small.
And so they created the places where people can meet and they have different functions.
You have Piazza Sordello, the Square of the power of the Gonzaga and of the religious
power of a bishop.
You have Piazza Broletto and Piazza Erbe, the market square and then you have a Piazza
Virgiliana, the garden square, all squares, different functions.
The only place where to meet and to do relationship.
And so close together.
And so close together, because during the Middle Ages they created the places where
people can walk and can meet and can have market.
And these places have to be in the center of the town.
It's very easy to cross from one square to the other.
This is a unique characteristic of Mantua, a unique feature of this town, not so big
as Verona, not so big as Brescia, very small, but with all the elements of a real Italian
town.
All concentrated within 500 meters.
Yes, yes, 500 meters.
And it is for this reason that to walk inside the town is to walk inside the story, the
history.
The streets are so narrow and you can walk at your ease, at your at your rhythm.
It is also incredible that a town so small can tell you a lot of stories and also that
walking inside the street, we have all the history of Italy where you have from Gothic,
to renaissance, to the modern times.
It's I think, a very great experience just walking inside the streets of cobblestones
of the town.
One of the most popular activities in Italy is taking a walk in the late afternoon, the
passeggiata, enjoyed by locals with their families and by the visitors, a chance to
see and be seen.
Some people like to show off a little bit.
You take him for a little walk, out for a stroll.
Oh, beautiful cat.
Unusual scenes occasionally pop up when you have enough time, when you're visiting a place
to relax and just enjoy the passing parade.
There are lots of places to eat in the porticos of Mantua, but one of the most popular is
Scaravelli, a bakery known for its traditional baked goods, pizza, focaccia, sandwiches,
cakes and pastries.
At the peak evening hour it can get very busy, but when you see a line forming at an eatery,
that's a good sign that there is some great food inside at a reasonable price.
It's a bakery that does a lot of Mantuan cakes and the main, the most important is Sbrisoilona.
It is easier to eat this Sbrisoilona because it comes to pieces.
This is Piazza Erbe, that is to say, the green square, where there is the market of fruits
and vegetables.
And it is the main square in the town.
It is a postcard view of Mantua with the Palazzo della Ragione, the clock tower and the rotunda.
You can go inside both the rotunda and the Clocktower and it's worth climbing up the
steps because you will get a wonderful view over the central historic part of the city.
This Torre Dell'Orologio is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Mantua, 53 meters
high, made of brick and marble.
It was built in the late 15th century, and the clock was added in the 16th century and
is still working today.
The rotunda is the most ancient church here in Mantua.
It was built by Matilda di Canossa during the Middle Ages.
It was built in the form of the Holy Sepulcher.
But it's very interesting to say that the Rotunda was completely covered by the house
of a ghettos of the Jews.
It disappeared completely for three centuries.
But now we are going to see again the Rotunda.
It was restored at the beginning of the 20th century.
And it is the most the beloved church herein Mantua, by Mantuan people.
A lot of people want to marry inside the rotunda.
Next to it is the four-star Grand Hotel San Lorenzo in the heart of town.
It is one of the most important hotels in town.
That is the San Lorenzo.
A lot of people go there to feast a birthday, to feast their marriage anniversary and all
the other important things.
So this is the house of a merchant, Boniforte da Concorezzo.
So it was built during the 15th century and it was a house, it was a shop, and the merchant
decided to build the house just in the center of the town near the market of Piazza Erbe,
near the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, and the porticos,
because these porticos are full of shops.
So here is the commercial center of the town.
And there is something very interesting because under the portico, he sculpted all the goods
he sold inside the shop.
So it's just like an advertisement, Spoons, knives.
And then you have there the gloves, an advertisement from the Middle Ages.
Yes, the Church of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea.
It was built by, a very famous architect in Italy.
It is more than 500 years of history.
So Alberti planned the basilica, but he didn't want the basilica to be covered by frescoes
or by paintings because this had to be a place of worship.
It’s the basilica more eternal, perfect, a Renaissance tyle, very simple, very clean.
This was completely covered by frescoes, by the Austrians during 18th century.
And so the basilica lost its simplicity.
And it was built because inside, there is the relic of the Holy Blood of Christ.
That was taken to Mantua by Longino, the Roman soldier who struck Jesus in the chest.
And so he collected the earth under the cross, mixed up with the blood of Christ and came
to Mantua to preach the gospel.
The relic was used to create diplomatic relationships, and so small pieces of the relic were gifted
to very important persons all over Europe.
The relic was very important for the town because a lot of people, a lot of pilgrims,
came to Mantua to worship the holy relic of the Blood of Christ.
Wow.
So these pilgrims, they were the first tourists.
Yes, the pilgrims were the first tourists to come to Mantua.
And if you think of the portico just on the side of the cathedral, the Basilica, they
were the place where they could buy things or we could sleep under the porticos, because
they do not have enough money to lodge in a hotel.
Just like today.
Yes.
And the Basilica of Sant'Andrea is the biggest church in Mantua.
And it is the second cathedral in Mantua, because Mantua, a very small town, has two
cathedrals, like Rome, and Mantua has the Duomo and the Basilica of Sant'Andrea.
If you look at the facade, you have the Renaissance facade in a nice front and you have a gothic
bell tower.
Because when Leon Battista Alberti built the basilica, the Gonzaga didn't want to spend
so much money to build again the Gothic bell tower, because it had only 50 years of life
at that period.
The triangle tympanum goes inside the window of the bell tower.
But I think that Italy has something that it is difficult to find in other parts of
the world.
Italy has something special.
It's a great place also to live, to live in Italy.
Yes.
Why is that?
But because you have art and you have history and you are completely surrounded by beauty.
It's incredible how Italians grew up with beauty all around.
And then it's difficult to go outside Italy to live because you lack, you lack beauty.
So you have a style and yeah, the architecture.
Yes.
If you think of all the things that we have all around, sometimes we forget to remember
them.
We have to go outside Italy and then you want to go back because you feel homesick.
Homesick.
And Italy, you walk, you ride bicycle, you have the piazza.
We can see that the towns are very good to walk all around.
And so you feel at home and also outside your home because the towns are just like little
homes all around.
And this is just like the dining room, then you have the kitchen, there are the restaurants.
And so, to live outside in Italy is to live inside a very small flat, we can say, with
a lot of rooms and a lot of people to see and to meet.
And for most of the year, the weather is pleasant.
You can sit outside.
Yes.
You should stay from March to October, you can stay outside.
This is a wonderful period.
We are going to see a very small square.
It's just like a little piece of Paris in Mantua.
Okay, beautiful.
This is like a secret passage because we start from the front, it is a renaissance front.
And then we are going inside a square where you are in the Middle Ages.
lSo it's just like a traveling in time.
Most visitors would never notice this side door and the portico that leads into a hidden
courtyard.
And there is the base of the bell tower here that is detached from the basilica.
This was the main entrance of a Benedictine monastery of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea.
And you see that there is the gothic decoration in terracotta.
If you are doing time travel, we go inside the Middle Ages.
This is the porticos that was part of a cloister of the Benedictine monastery of Sant'Andrea.
You have a well in the middle of the cloister.
The square is the Piazza Alberti, because it is named after the architect who built
the basilica, Leon Battista Alberti.
This is part of a church, and it was not covered with frescoes.
This is the side entrance of the church because the church has only two entrances, the main
and side.
This is Palazzo Canossa, built during the 17th century for the family.
Canossa was a very important family.
They built this house where there was the stables for their horses, for the chariots.
And so it was related to the palace.
And if you look at the main entrance of the palace, you have two dogs guarding the main
door.
It has all the elements of an Italian square -- the little church, it is the Church of
the Virgin of Earthquake, to protect the town from the earthquake.
You have a little bell tower there and then you have that edicola.
That edicola was a place where the Italian bought newspapers and magazines.
So this is Piazza Virgiliana, the first public garden here in Mantova . Here there was water.
It was the second port of the town.
So they dried up the water.
They cover completely the place and they created this incredible garden, because there was
not a lot of gardens in Mantua because it was a fortress.
And the inside the fortress, you do not have gardens.
So this is Palazzo D’Arco, that dates back to the 18th century.
It is the only museum, that is completely furnished, so you can go inside and live,
just like the noble people in Mantua lived during the 18th century.
We are going to do this walk, just to the center and towards the rio, because the water
was important for the town.
Here it links the Upper lake to the Lower lake and here is Porto Catena.
Still nowadays you can go from here to Venice by boat.
Mantua was an island.
It was just a little Venice in the northern part of Italy.
This is the Rio.
Rio in Italian means a little river, and it is the canal that comes from the Upper lake
and it goes to the Lower lake to Porto Catena.
And you see that the canal goes just to near the center of the town.
And it divides the town in two different parts, just like a moat to protect the town.
So the canal is just under the street.
So this is the view of the Rio, the canal before it was covered up during the 20th century
because of the traffic.
So they created the street.
After the Second World War they completely covered up the canal.
They destroyed the ancient palaces and they built these new palaces.
But since you are in Italy, they made palaces with porticos.
This is a place that was completely transformed during the 20th century.
Originally built as a fish market in the 16th century, it now serves as a cultural center
and a park.
And so they open this wonderful view, with a fish market by Giulio Romano.
The arcades are the porticos of the fish market.
There is an arcaded terrace next to it where you can get a nice view looking out on the
Rio.
And if you'll look a little further, you'll see that there's a park that runs alongside
the Rio, which you can easily walk to in a few minutes.
Then you can enjoy some other views of the canal from a different bridge, looking out
in both directions.
Via Roma is nearby and would lead you back into the town center.
We are continuing our walking tour with Giacomo along a street now that had been a center
of jewelry making.
And this is the street of a jewelry here, it is called Via di Orefici.
And this is a very famous Mantuan shop for Salumi, prosciutto, salami.
Most are the typical typical food of Mantuan people.
This building was built during the 20th century, but it is a mix of Middle Age, modern, Liberti,
and it is the House of Enterprises here in Mantua.
It is the Cámara de Comercio, the commercial house.
You see, that is very strange because it seems from the Middle Ages, but it is modern.
It is a cocktail of different styles.
This was the ancient street of the ghetto of the Jews, because in the center of the
town of Mantua, there was a ghetto, just like in Venice or in other towns .
But then it was destroyed at the beginning of the 20th century because the streets were
very, very narrow, the buildings are very old.
And so they destroyed, and they built the Cámara de Comercio, they constructed the
municipal, and then the Bank of Italy.
And it is interesting to say that all these buildings are related to money.
And usually the banks were in the ghetto of the Jews.
Yes, zucca, one of the main dishes in Mantua, our pumpkin ravioli, tortelli di zucca.
I tried that signature dish of Mantua, pumpkin ravioli.
Very tasty.
If you look here, there is a wonderful viewpoint, a wonderful point of view, because you have
1000 years in a very small view.
You have Rotonda di San Lorenzo.
You have a clock tower, Palazzo della Ragione, the dome of Sant'Andrea, Santander, and then
the facade of Sant'Andrea, and Bell Tower.
So you have 1000 years just in one place.
Mantua is very small, but you have a lot of wonderful views to see when you go inside
the town.
One of the things people do not do is looking up, because when you are looking up, you see
a lot of things, but usually you don't see.
It's just like opening eyes, usually, walking inside of town when you open the eyes and
see a lot of things, incredible.
Now we are going to cross the last bridge on the Rio that is the Porto Catena.
So this is Porto Catena.
It is where the cruise that goes to Venice starts from here and goes to Venice with a
canal and you have the end the part of Rio, because the Rio comes here and goes into a
lower lake.
And the Porto Catena means the chain in Italy, and it means of a chain that closed up the
entrance of the harbor, because they want to prevent the ships from going inside during
the night without paying the taxes.
From Porto Catena, it's very easy to take a walk along the lakeshore of the Lower Lake.
It's a public park with beautiful green lawns and lots of trees.
Some people are out fishing.
There are boats going by.
It's a family-friendly recreation area.
From here, it's easy to walk back into the old town for some more sights.
The Teatro Bibiena, also known as the Scientific Theater, opened in 1769 with a wonderful Baroque
architecture, famous for its horseshoe-shaped auditorium and stucco decorations.
Mozart performed here on harpsichord when he was just 13, and today, it's still a popular
venue for music, theater and dance with excellent acoustics.
Now we're going back to where we started at Piazza Sordello.
It's an easy walk, about 300 meters along these lovely streets of the old town lined
with the porticos, the ideal place for walking.
And now we are here in Piazza Sordello.
The magnificent palaces all around the piazza were homes to the ruling dynasties that controlled
Mantua over the centuries.
A good place to learn a little bit about their history.
This is the Palazzo Bonacolsi.
The Bonacolsi was the family who ruled the town before the Gonzaga.
In 1328 the Gonzaga got the power over the town and they ruled over the town for four
centuries.
This is the main square of a town.
But the curiosity, the interesting thing is that it was not a square until the Gonzaga
came to town and got the power in 1328.
Here it was the old town, but the square was created by the Gonzaga, who destroyed completely
all the houses here, because here there was all the houses from the Middle Ages.
The Gonzaga usually used the square for doing great celebrations, feasting, tournaments,
and all these things.
You have cobblestones all around.
They were put there by the Gonzaga because a pope came to Mantua and he said that the
town was muddy.
And so they created this cobblestone square to eliminate the mud.
And so it is not the square created by the market, by the people, crowding in the square.
The square is created by the Gonzaga that destroyed a very important part of the town.
And so the people do not like this square because they feel that was a square created
by the power of the Gonzaga.
So here we have the Palazzo Ducale, the Ducal Palace.
It is one of the most incredible buildings all over Europe, 35,000 square meters.
So you have 1000 rooms inside and you have a lot of things to see.
Andrea Mantegna painted the Camera degli Sposi.
It was called during the Renaissance times, the Camera Picture, that is to say the Painted
Room, because it is a wonderful way to tell the story of the Gonzaga family.
It took Mantegna nine years to complete this fresco, which covers the entire ceiling and
upper walls of the room.
It's considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Renaissance art, especially famous for
the illusionistic Oculus, which appears to be an opening in the ceiling with little cupids
looking down, with foreshortened perspective that creates a sense of depth and realism.
Some visitors come to Mantua, primarily to see this painting.
The palace is completely empty, only the frescoes remain because during the centuries a lot
of people came to Mantua to sack the town.
So we are in front of a Castle of St. George.
It is one of the ancient parts of the Ducal Palace.
It was built by Francesco the first, of Gonzaga.
He was captain of the people here in Mantua, and he built the castle because he feared
the rebellion inside the town.
So it was a place where to be safe.
And then you have the cathedral.
The cathedral is the Duomo for the Mantuan people, because the Duomo is the most important
church inside the town.
And near the cathedral you have the Palace of the Bishop of Mantua.
So this is the Palazzo Vescovile, the Bishop’s Palace.
It was a recent palace because it dates back to the 19th century.
There are some Austrian influences here in Mantel because Mantua was an Austrian town
from 1708 to 1866, when the town became an Italian town.
It was built during Austrian period, this palace, and it was built by a local family.
And only after it became the palace of the bishop.
So you have two Herculese, and also a lot of statues of gods and goddesses from Mount
Olympus, not very suitable for a bishop, but the family before built the palace.
And so you have also the front of the Palazzo del Seminario, which is in a neoclassical
style typical of the Austrian period, just down the street.
So there are two cafes on the on the square, the Sordello square.
They open at 6:00 in the morning.
If you wake up early before your hotel is serving breakfast, then you can come down
to these two cafes, the only places in the historic center to get coffee at 6 a.m.
Later, they get quite busy serving lunch and dinner.
Piazza Sordello has a long, rich history dating back to the Roman era.
It's been the site of important events throughout the centuries.
See also the Dome of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea and the Tower of the Cage, that is the tallest
tower in Mantua.
It is very interesting because there is a cage just on the middle of a tower because
they put there the criminals.
Prisoners?
Yes.
A way to show how if you are good, you can walk the streets.
If you are a criminal, you will be put inside the cage.
It was a prison tower during the Gonzaga times.
They have a lot of prison, but also during the Austrian time here in Mantua.
We are we are looking at the skyline of Mantua.
In Italy it is very well-known, this skyline, and Mantua was completely surrounded by the
lakes, an island with a lot of very high buildings where you have the power inside the town.
Mantua is a very ancient town, dates back to Etruscan, Etruscan times and Roman times.
And then they have also Charles the Great, Charles the Great appointed the title of town
to Mantua, because it was found the Holy Relic of the Blood of Christ.
And then you have the Canossa, with Matilda di Canossa, the Bonacolsi, the Gonzaga, the
Austrian and then Italy.
It is a very long history.
Okay.
We've been enjoying a walk through the city with our local guide, Giacomo, it's been fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
It's really been a pleasure.
We've had a unique perspective on Mantua, and learned all about this wonderful town
and why you should come and visit Mantua.
Yes, it's an amazing place.
“Ciao” okay.
Very good.
Bye Bye.
Thank you.
Grazie.
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