Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and mythical history, Mantua is hugely romantic, and well worth a visit; unen-
cumbered by tourist hordes, it's a most convenient side trip from Verona.
Get up early to catch the 9:33am
train
from Verona (
2.30), which will allow
you to spend a full day enjoying the many sights.
Warning:
Don't visit Mantua
on a Monday, when nearly every attraction in town is closed.
From the train station, you can take
bus no. 1
directly into the historical
center, which you can also reach on foot (count on about 10 min.). Here, with
its entrance on Piazza delle Erbe, you'll find an extremely thorough
Ufficio
Informazioni Turistiche
(
Tourist Information Office;
Piazza Montegna, 6;
%
0376-328253; www.turismo.mantova.it; Mon-Sat 8:30am-12:30pm and
3-6pm, Sun 9:30am-12:30pm),
with reams of ideas for how you can spend your
day, and maps that will help you find your way.
The tourist office has its entrance directly opposite the small round
Rotonda
di San Lorenzo
(free admission; daily 10am-1pm and 2-6pm),
the city's oldest
church, originally built in the 11th century. Although it has been partially demol-
ished and rebuilt, there are still some 800-year-old frescoes on display.
Around the corner, the imposing facade of the Renaissance-era
Basilica of St.
Andrea
€
(Piazza Mantegna;
%
0376-328504; free admission; daily 8am-noon
and 3-7pm)
looms gracefully over Piazza Mantegna. Commissioned by Lodovico
II Gonzaga and designed in monumental style by Leon Battista Alberti, this
church centers on a holy crypt in which soil soaked with the blood of Christ is
kept. The sacred relic was supposedly brought to Mantua by Longinus, the
Roman soldier who pierced Christ's side while he was on the cross, and its authen-
ticity was demonstrated when a visiting pope claimed that it cured his gout. You
can visit the crypt with permission for
5
1; those in town on Good Friday can wit-
ness a procession in which the relic is paraded through the city streets. Above the
altar of the crypt is the Octagon, and above this is the church's main dome, dec-
orated with a fresco featuring a frenzy of activity. The first chapel on the left is
also the final resting place of Andrea Mantegna, the much sought-after court
painter employed by the Gonzagas during the 15th century.
Mantegna is celebrated as the most important investment the Gonzagas made
in a long and sensitive relationship with the arts. Sure, they mostly enjoyed hav-
ing themselves painted, but they also supported artists like Titian and Pisanello,
thus inadvertently making a valuable contribution to museums around the world.
To see Mantegna's famous rendition of the Gonzagas, visit the fascinating
Palazzo
Ducale
€
(Porto Sordello;
%
0367-224832; www.mantovaducale.it;
€
6.50;
Tues-Sun 8:45am-7:15pm),
a city-within-a-city that was the Gonzaga family
home, a palace that expanded along with their wealth and means. Pressed for
time, I'd single out the Camera degli Sposi, one of the apartments of Isabelle
d'Este, who married Francesco Gonzaga at the end of the 15th century; here,
Mantegna spent 9 years capturing life at court in his famous fresco cycle, which
is a marvel of Renaissance painting.
Amid the palace's maze of architectural styles, you'll encounter hundreds of
treasures of the Renaissance and Roman eras, although it remains a sore point that
many of Mantegna's canvases have been removed to other museums across the
globe. Pisanello's frescoes decorate the
Sala del Pisanello;
his 15th-century cele-
bration of the Arthurian legends remained under plaster until rediscovery in
1969. Also worth a look is the
Apartment of the Dwarves (Appartemento dei
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