Mantua was an island settlement which was first established about the year 2000 BC on the banks of River
Mincio, which flows from
Lake Garda to the
Adriatic Sea. In the 6th century BC, Mantua was an
Etruscan village which, in the Etruscan tradition, was re-founded by
Ocnus. The name may derive from the Etruscan god
Mantus. After being conquered by the
Cenomani, a
Gallic tribe, Mantua was subsequently fought between the first and second
Punic Wars against the
Romans, who attributed its name to
Manto, a daughter of
Tiresias. This territory was later populated by veteran soldiers of
Augustus. Mantua's most famous ancient citizen is the poet
Virgil, or Publius Vergilius Maro (
Mantua me genuit), who was born in the year 70 BC at a village near the city which is now known as Virgilio.
After the Fall of the Roman Empire After the fall of the
Western Roman Empire at the hands of
Odoacer in 476 AD, Mantua was, along with the rest of Italy, conquered by the
Ostrogoths. It was retaken by the
Eastern Roman Empire in the middle of the 6th century following the
Gothic War but was subsequently lost again to the
Lombards. They were in turn conquered by
Charlemagne in 774, thus incorporating Mantua into the
Frankish Empire. Partitions of the empire (due to the Franks' use of
partible inheritance) in the
Treaties of Verdun and
Prüm led to Mantua passing to
Middle Francia in 843, then the
Kingdom of Italy in 855. In 962 Italy was invaded by King
Otto I of
Germany, and Mantua thus became a vassal of the newly formed
Holy Roman Empire. In the 11th century, Mantua became a possession of
Boniface of Canossa,
marquis of
Tuscany. The last ruler of that family was the countess
Matilda of Canossa (d. 1115), who, according to legend, ordered the construction of the precious
Rotonda di San Lorenzo (or St. Lawrence's Roundchurch) in 1082. The Rotonda still exists today and was renovated in 2013.
Free Imperial City of Mantua After the death of Matilda of Canossa, Mantua became a
free commune and strenuously defended itself from the influence of the Holy Roman Empire during the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1198, Alberto Pitentino altered the course of River Mincio, creating what the Mantuans call "the four lakes" to reinforce the city's natural protection. Three of these lakes still remain today and the fourth one, which ran through the centre of town, was reclaimed during the 18th century.
Podesteria Rule From 1215, the city was ruled under the
podesteria of the Guelph poet-statesman
Rambertino Buvalelli. During the struggle between the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines, Pinamonte Bonacolsi took advantage of the chaotic situation to seize power of the podesteria in 1273. He was declared the
Captain General of the People. The
Bonacolsi family ruled Mantua for the next two generations and made it more prosperous and artistically beautiful. On 16 August 1328 Luigi Gonzaga, an official in Bonacolsi's podesteria, and his family staged a public revolt in Mantua and forced a
coup d'état on the last Bonacolsi ruler, Rinaldo.
House of Gonzaga receiving the news of his son
Francesco being created a cardinal, fresco by
Andrea Mantegna in the Stanza degli Sposi of
Palazzo Ducale Ludovico Gonzaga, who had been
Podestà of Mantua since 1318, was duly elected
Capitano del popolo. The Gonzagas built new walls with five gates and renovated the city in the 14th century; however, the political situation did not settle until the governance of the third ruler of Gonzaga,
Ludovico III Gonzaga, who eliminated his relatives and centralised power to himself. During the Italian Renaissance, the Gonzaga family softened their despotic rule and further raised the level of culture and refinement in Mantua. Mantua became a significant center of Renaissance art and humanism.
Gianfrancesco Gonzaga had brought
Vittorino da Feltre to Mantua in 1423 to open his famous humanist school, the Casa Giocosa. Through a payment of 120,000 golden
florins in 1433, he was appointed
Marquis of Mantua, Gianfrancesco I by the
Emperor Sigismund, whose niece
Barbara of Brandenburg was married to his son,
Ludovico. In 1459,
Pope Pius II held the
Council of Mantua to proclaim a crusade against the
Turks. Under Ludovico and his heirs, the famous
Renaissance painter
Andrea Mantegna worked in Mantua as court painter, producing some of his most outstanding works.
Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, married Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of
Mantua in 1490. When she moved to Mantua from
Ferrara (she was the daughter of
Duke Ercole the ruler of
Ferrara) she created her famous
studiolo firstly in
Castello di San Giorgio for which she commissioned paintings from
Mantegna,
Perugino and
Lorenzo Costa. She later moved her studiolo to the Corte Vecchia and commissioned two paintings from
Correggio to join the five from Castello di San Giorgio. It was unusual for a woman to have a studiolo in 15th century Italy given they were regarded as masculine spaces. Isabella was a vociferous collector and such was her reputation that Niccolò da Corregio called her 'la prima donna del mondo'.
Duchy of Mantua The first Duke of
Mantua was
Federico II Gonzaga, who acquired the title from the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V in 1530. Federico commissioned
Giulio Romano to build the famous
Palazzo Te, on the periphery of the city, and profoundly improved the city. In the late 16th century,
Claudio Monteverdi came to Mantua from his native Cremona. He worked for the court of
Vincenzo I Gonzaga, first as a singer and violist, then as music director, marrying the court singer Claudia Cattaneo in 1599.
From Gonzaga to Habsburg In 1627, the direct line of the Gonzaga family came to an end with the vicious and weak
Vincenzo II, and Mantua slowly declined under the new rulers, the
Gonzaga-Nevers, a cadet French branch of the family. The
War of the Mantuan Succession broke out, and in 1630 an
Imperial army of 36,000 mercenaries under
Matthias Gallas and
Johann von Aldringen besieged and sacked Mantua, bringing the plague with them.
Ferdinand Carlo IV, an inept ruler, whose only interest was in holding parties and theatrical shows, allied with France in the
War of the Spanish Succession. After the French defeat, he took refuge in
Venice and carried with him a thousand pictures. At his death in 1708, the Duke of Mantua was declared deposed and his family of Gonzaga lost Mantua forever in favour of the
Habsburgs of Austria. Under Austrian rule, Mantua enjoyed a revival and during this period the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, the Scientific Theatre, and numerous palaces were built.
Napoleonic Wars In 1786, ten years before
Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Italy, the Austrian Duchy of Mantua briefly united with the
Duchy of Milan until 1791. On 4 June 1796 during the
War of the First Coalition, Mantua was
besieged by
Napoleon Bonaparte's French army. The first Austrian attempt to break the siege was successful and the siege was abandoned on 1 August. The Austrian army was defeated at the
Battle of Castiglione on 5 August and left the area. The French resumed the siege on August 27 and accepted surrender of the city on 2 February 1797. The city was recaptured by the Austrians in the
War of the Second Coalition after a
siege lasting from 8 April to 28 July 1799. Later, the city again passed into Napoleon's control and became a part of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy. In 1810
Andreas Hofer was shot by Porta Giulia, a gate of the town at Borgo di Porto (Cittadella) for leading the insurrection in the
County of Tyrol against Napoleon.
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia After the brief period of French rule, Mantua returned to Austria in 1814, becoming one of the
Quadrilatero fortress cities in northern Italy. Under the
Congress of Vienna (1815), Mantua became a province in the Austrian Empire's
Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. Agitation against Austria, however, culminated in a revolt which lasted from 1851 to 1855, but it was finally suppressed by the Austrian army. One of the most famous episodes of the Italian
Risorgimento took place in the valley of the Belfiore, where a group of rebels was hanged by the Austrians.
Unification of Italy At the
Battle of Solferino (
Second Italian War of Independence) in 1859, the
House of Savoy's Piedmont-Sardinia sided with the French Emperor
Napoleon III against the Austrian Empire. Following Austria's defeat, Lombardy was ceded to France, who transferred Lombardy to Piedmont-Sardinia in return for
Nice and
Savoy. Mantua, although a constituent province of Lombardy, still remained under the Austrian Empire along with Venetia. In 1866, Prussia-led
North German Confederation sided with the newly established, Piedmont-led Kingdom of Italy against the Austrian Empire in the
Third Italian War of Independence. The quick defeat of Austria led to its withdrawal of the Kingdom of Venetia (including the capital city,
Venice). Mantua reconnected with the region of Lombardy and was
incorporated into the
Kingdom of Italy.
20th century During
World War II, in November 1943, Nazi Germany relocated the Stalag 337
prisoner-of-war camp from
Leśna in
German-occupied Poland to Mantua. == Demographics ==