Description
The Edicola di Virgilio is the niche between two columns on the façade of the Palazzo del Podestà facing Piazza Broletto, in the medieval heart of Mantua: inside sits the poet of the Aeneid, a son of the city, carved in the 13th century.
The statue, the Virgil Enthroned, shows him as a teacher: seated, with a doctoral cap on his head and his arms resting on a lectern. Along the lectern runs the inscription “Virgilius Mantuanus poetarum clarissimus”, Virgil of Mantua, the most illustrious of poets. The figure is worn by time.
Mantuans call it in dialect “la vècia”, the old woman. The palazzo that houses it was built in 1227 for the podestà Laudarengo Martinengo, and since December 7, 2024, it has been home to the Museo Virgilio, devoted to the poet.
The statue, the Virgil Enthroned, shows him as a teacher: seated, with a doctoral cap on his head and his arms resting on a lectern. Along the lectern runs the inscription “Virgilius Mantuanus poetarum clarissimus”, Virgil of Mantua, the most illustrious of poets. The figure is worn by time.
Mantuans call it in dialect “la vècia”, the old woman. The palazzo that houses it was built in 1227 for the podestà Laudarengo Martinengo, and since December 7, 2024, it has been home to the Museo Virgilio, devoted to the poet.