Description
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 is dominated by the Palazzo del Capitano and the Domus Magna, crenellated and with fifteenth-century mullioned windows. The Palazzo del Capitano predates 1328, the year the Gonzagas took power: it is the oldest core of the Ducal Palace.
On the opposite side, looking at the Duomo, follow one another Palazzo Acerbi with the Torre della Gabbia, Palazzo Bonacolsi, adorned with round-arched triple windows, and Ca' degli Uberti. The Duomo has an eighteenth-century facade, but the massive Romanesque bell tower shows its medieval origin.
The Torre della Gabbia, 55 meters high, takes its name from the iron cage hung there in 1576 by Duke Guglielmo, a sort of open-air prison: one meter by two, little more than a meter high, in which the condemned were displayed to the square. A pickpocket, Marchino Ziganti, stayed in it for three months.
The tower belonged to the Acerbi and in 1281 was sold to Pinamonte Bonacolsi. The facade toward Via Cavour was remade in the sixteenth century with marble pilasters and decorations of the Mantegna school.
Next to the tower is preserved the Bonacolsi chapel, with a cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes in the style of Giotto. The square hides another surprise: in 2006 the mosaic floors of a Roman domus of the imperial era came to light, in a structure that allows them to be seen.
The square came about around 1330 as the Piazza di San Pietro. To create it the old houses between two parallel streets, which still followed the ancient plan of the Roman city, were demolished. For centuries it was the center of Mantua.
The name is more recent: in 1867 it was dedicated to Sordello da Goito, the thirteenth-century troubadour poet whom Dante meets in the Purgatorio. It was believed that his palace stood here, but there is no certain information about that building.
An exedra closed the square to the north, the work of Bernardino Facciotto for Duke Guglielmo, with a great arch that opened onto the Prato di Castello, now Piazza Castello. It was demolished in 1901 to let carts pass more easily.
Don't miss
• The Torre della Gabbia.
• The Palazzo del Capitano.
• The Duomo and its bell tower.
• The Roman mosaics.
Did you know?
• Domenico Morone painted the square in 1494 in the Expulsion of the Bonacolsi, kept in the Ducal Palace: back then the Duomo still had a late Gothic facade by the Dalle Masegne.
• The real Sordello was a troubadour who wandered across half of Europe: he even served the Count of Provence and died in Abruzzo.
The scene is dominated by the Palazzo del Capitano and the Domus Magna, crenellated and with fifteenth-century mullioned windows. The Palazzo del Capitano predates 1328, the year the Gonzagas took power: it is the oldest core of the Ducal Palace.
On the opposite side, looking at the Duomo, follow one another Palazzo Acerbi with the Torre della Gabbia, Palazzo Bonacolsi, adorned with round-arched triple windows, and Ca' degli Uberti. The Duomo has an eighteenth-century facade, but the massive Romanesque bell tower shows its medieval origin.
The Torre della Gabbia, 55 meters high, takes its name from the iron cage hung there in 1576 by Duke Guglielmo, a sort of open-air prison: one meter by two, little more than a meter high, in which the condemned were displayed to the square. A pickpocket, Marchino Ziganti, stayed in it for three months.
The tower belonged to the Acerbi and in 1281 was sold to Pinamonte Bonacolsi. The facade toward Via Cavour was remade in the sixteenth century with marble pilasters and decorations of the Mantegna school.
Next to the tower is preserved the Bonacolsi chapel, with a cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes in the style of Giotto. The square hides another surprise: in 2006 the mosaic floors of a Roman domus of the imperial era came to light, in a structure that allows them to be seen.
The square came about around 1330 as the Piazza di San Pietro. To create it the old houses between two parallel streets, which still followed the ancient plan of the Roman city, were demolished. For centuries it was the center of Mantua.
The name is more recent: in 1867 it was dedicated to Sordello da Goito, the thirteenth-century troubadour poet whom Dante meets in the Purgatorio. It was believed that his palace stood here, but there is no certain information about that building.
An exedra closed the square to the north, the work of Bernardino Facciotto for Duke Guglielmo, with a great arch that opened onto the Prato di Castello, now Piazza Castello. It was demolished in 1901 to let carts pass more easily.
Don't miss
• The Torre della Gabbia.
• The Palazzo del Capitano.
• The Duomo and its bell tower.
• The Roman mosaics.
Did you know?
• Domenico Morone painted the square in 1494 in the Expulsion of the Bonacolsi, kept in the Ducal Palace: back then the Duomo still had a late Gothic facade by the Dalle Masegne.
• The real Sordello was a troubadour who wandered across half of Europe: he even served the Count of Provence and died in Abruzzo.