The Ducal Palace of Mantua, the royal residence of the Gonzagas, is a palace-city of more than 35,000 square meters, with courtyards, gardens and hundreds of rooms, in the center of Mantua, between Piazza Sordello and Lake Inferiore. Inside is a...
Palazzo Te is the pleasure villa that Federico II Gonzaga had built on the southern edge of Mantua between 1524 and 1534: Giulio Romano's masterpiece, a low, square palace where every room is painted from floor to ceiling.
Federico wanted...
The Basilica of Sant'Andrea is the largest church in Mantua, in the heart of the old town: a Renaissance masterpiece designed by Leon Battista Alberti, with a façade like a Roman triumphal arch and a dome 80 metres high.
What stays with...
The Rotonda di San Lorenzo is one of the oldest churches in Mantua: a small, circular Romanesque building from the 11th century, sitting a metre and a half below the level of Piazza delle Erbe, right in the centre.
Outside, ten...
Mantua Cathedral, dedicated to St Peter, closes the north side of Piazza Sordello, a few steps from the Palazzo Ducale: a building that brings three eras together at a glance, with its Baroque façade, Gothic flank and Romanesque bell...
Piazza Sordello is the main square of Mantua, the old political, religious and social heart of the city. On one side the crenellated palaces of the Gonzagas, on the other the Duomo, the towers and the palaces of the old families.
The scene...
Piazza delle Erbe, more simply called Piazza Erbe, is the market square in the heart of Mantua: a long space lined with arcades, towers and medieval palaces, where in a few steps you go from a Romanesque church to a Renaissance...
The Teatro Scientifico del Bibiena is a small 18th-century theatre in the centre of Mantua, inside the palace of the Accademia Virgiliana: a bell-shaped hall wrapped in four tiers of painted wooden boxes, where the young Mozart played in...
The House of Mantegna is the home the painter Andrea Mantegna built for himself in Mantua from 1476, opposite the church of San Sebastiano: a building that looks utterly plain but hides, at its centre, a surprising round courtyard. It hosts...
The Palazzo della Ragione is Mantua's old town hall, on the eastern side of Piazza delle Erbe: a long medieval building with a 15th-century arcade on the ground floor and, above, a great 13th-century hall that houses the Sonnabend Collection...
The Castle of San Giorgio is the Gonzaga fortress where the Lago di Mezzo meets the Lago Inferiore, in Mantua: a massive square with four corner towers, surrounded by a moat. It is part of the Palazzo Ducale complex and holds one of the...
The Lago Superiore (Upper Lake) is the largest of the three lakes around Mantua, formed by the river Mincio: a wide expanse of water right by the city that in summer is covered in white and pink lotus flowers.
The lotus flowers are the...
The Lago di Mezzo (Middle Lake) is the smallest of Mantua's three lakes, the stretch of water in which the Gonzagas' Castle of San Giorgio is reflected. Small but deep: at 15 metres, it is the deepest of the three.
The lake lies between...
The Lago Inferiore (Lower Lake) is the last of the three lakes the Mincio forms around Mantua: the shallowest, 9 metres at most and just 3 on average, where the waters leave the city and resume their course towards the Po.
The Ponte di San...
The Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) is the Renaissance tower on Piazza delle Erbe in Mantua, between the Palazzo della Ragione and the Rotonda di San Lorenzo: you can recognise it by its large 15th-century astronomical dial, which shows not...
The Church of San Francesco is the Gothic church of Mantua's Franciscans, on Piazza San Francesco d'Assisi: almost entirely destroyed by bombs in 1944 and rebuilt, it still holds the chapel that for over a century was the mausoleum of the first...
The Mincio Park is the regional park that protects the valley of the river Mincio, from Lake Garda to the Po, by way of Mantua: some 16,000 hectares of hills, marshes, farmland and lakes, to explore on foot or by bike.
The park changes...
The Palazzo del Podestà, also known as the Broletto, is the medieval palace that separates Piazza delle Erbe from Piazza Broletto, in the centre of Mantua. For centuries it was the heart of the city's government, and since 2024 it has housed the...
The Church of San Maurizio is a Baroque church on Via Chiassi, in the centre of Mantua: behind a façade with four statues of saints it holds large 17th-century canvases, an altarpiece by Ludovico Carracci and the tombstone of Giovanni dalle Bande...
Palazzo Valenti Gonzaga is the Baroque residence of the Valenti Gonzaga marquises on Via Frattini, in the centre of Mantua: its piano nobile houses the Galleria Museo Valenti Gonzaga, where the 17th-century frescoes and statues are still in their...
The Historical Museum of the National Fire Brigade, in Mantua, is Italy's largest collection of firefighting vehicles and memorabilia: three centuries of battling fires, gathered in the old stables of the Palazzo Ducale, near the tower of...
Piazza Broletto is the small medieval square between Piazza Sordello and Piazza delle Erbe, in the heart of Mantua: in the days of the commune it was the centre of public life, and its brick palaces still bear the marks.
The name comes...
The Church of San Barnaba looks onto the small Piazza Bazzani, where Via Chiassi meets Via Carlo Poma, in the centre of Mantua: a Baroque church full of large canvases, where in 1546 Giulio Romano, the artist of Palazzo Te, was buried.
It...
Piazza Virgiliana is Mantua's vast garden square, on the edge of the historic centre towards the Lago di Mezzo: a park shaded by rows of tall trees, born where a harbour once lay, and dedicated to the Latin poet Virgil, a son of this...
The Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria is a small late Gothic church on the little Piazza San Simone, in the centre of Mantua: Francesco II Gonzaga had it built to celebrate the victory of Fornovo, and Andrea Mantegna painted one of his...
The Church of San Sebastiano is the Renaissance temple that Leon Battista Alberti designed on the edge of Mantua's centre, on the road that led to the Te: an austere, solemn building, conceived like an ancient temple.
It was begun around...
The Church of Sant'Orsola is an octagonal Baroque church on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, in Mantua: the last remnant of the great convent that Margherita Gonzaga, widowed Duchess of Ferrara, founded for herself and her nuns, almost a second...
The Torre della Gabbia is a 55-metre medieval brick tower on Via Cavour in the centre of Mantua, not far from Piazza Sordello: it owes its name to the iron cage hanging in mid-air, where condemned people were once put on public...
The Casa del Rigoletto is the medieval house on Piazza Sordello, in Mantua, behind the cathedral and a stone's throw from the Castle of San Giorgio, which tradition assigns to the court jester of Verdi's opera: an invented character with a real...
The Arengario is the great round arch of Piazza Broletto, in the medieval heart of Mantua: built around 1300, it links the Palazzo del Podestà to the Palazzo del Massaro, home of the official who managed the commune's property.
Above the...
The National Archaeological Museum of Mantua gathers what excavations have brought to light in the Mantua area, from the Neolithic to the Renaissance. It is housed within the grounds of the Ducal Palace, in a large late-19th-century...
The City Museum of Palazzo San Sebastiano, called MACA – Mantova Collezioni Antiche since 2023, tells the history and art of Mantua in the favorite residence of Marquis Francesco II Gonzaga, built between 1506 and 1512.
The palace itself...
The Palazzo d'Arco Museum is the home of the Counts d'Arco, nobles of Trentino origin, left as it was in 1973, when the last heir, Giovanna d'Arco, bequeathed it to the city to become a museum. It is a Neoclassical palace inspired by Palladio, in...
Palazzo Sordi is a Baroque palace on Via Pomponazzo, in the center of Mantua, built in 1680 for the Marquises Sordi by the Flemish architect Frans Geffels. It is a private residence, but the facade alone is worth the detour.
The facade is...
The Basilica of Santa Barbara is the court church of the Gonzagas, tucked away in a small square among the buildings of the Ducal Palace in Mantua. Duke Guglielmo commissioned it, and Giovan Battista Bertani designed it, between 1562 and...
The Teatro Sociale is Mantua's 19th-century opera house, on Piazza Cavallotti: you can spot it by its portico of six Ionic columns under a triangular pediment. It was designed by Luigi Canonica, the architect who had enlarged La Scala in...
The Pescherie di Giulio Romano are the fish market Mantua built in 1536 over the Rio, the canal that runs through the center between Lago Superiore and Lago Inferiore. They were designed by Giulio Romano, the architect of Palazzo Te, which is why...
The Francesco Gonzaga Diocesan Museum keeps the art treasures of Mantua's churches in the former convent of Sant'Agnese, around a medieval cloister. It is named after the Franciscan friar Francesco Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua from 1593 to...
The Tazio Nuvolari Museum is devoted to the Mantua-born driver whom Ferdinand Porsche called the greatest of the past, the present and the future. It is housed in the former church of the Carmelino, on Via Giulio Romano, and also honors the...
The Casa del Mercante is the house-and-shop of a wealthy cloth merchant, on the corner of Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza Mantegna in the center of Mantua. It is one of the most curious civic buildings in the city: a red marble portico, a terracotta...