Mantoue

Mantoue ( Italian Mantova in ) is a Italian city, chief town of the province of the same name in Lombardy, area of the Plaine of Po.

Geography

At the 12th century, the Architect and Engineer Hydraulique Alberto Pitentino, at the request of the commune of Mantoue , organized a defense system of the city by using the configuration of the river Mincio in order to completely surround the center inhabited by four stretch of water which formed the four lakes: Higher , of the Medium, Lower and Paiolo : sight by far, Mantoue resembled an island. Campaign, one reached thanks to bridges; today two of these works, the bridge of Molini and the bridge of San Paolo, exist encore.
The organization of defense was improved with enclosing walls; the city reached its greater splendor.

At the 17th century, a strong flood signed the beginning of a rapid decline: the Mincio, by carrying solid materials, transformed the lakes into unhealthy marshes which influenced the future of the urban development; the lake Paiolo, in the south, was then drained so that the city only remained surrounded by water on three sides - as a peninsula - and today still, the situation is identical. It these three is stretch of water artificial, coming from a loop of the river Mincio which gives to Mantoue an almost magic characteristic since it makes think of a city left water. In 1984, part of common was included in the Parc of Mincio.

The presence of flowers of lotus in the lakes mantouans is the work of Anne Marie Pedegretti, Botaniste Parma sane which, ghost of the South-East Asia in 1921, wanted to try the experiment to draw from the root of the lotus of the flour for the Panification. The flour did not pass in the Gastronomie mantouane whereas the flower colonized most of the lakes mantouans.

History

The city was founded on the edges of the Mincio in 2000 av. J.C approximately. It was then, at the sixth century BC, an Etruscan village . Its name would come from Mantus, the equivalent of the god Hadès at the Etruscans. The Romains, which conquered the city between the first and the Second Punic War, confused Mantus with Manto, a girl of Tirésias. Virgile, born not far from the city, is called the swan of Mantoue.

The March 18th 1086, holy Anselme de Lucques dies in Mantoue and becomes thus patron saint of the city.

Beginning of the 12th century at the beginning of the 14th century, Mantoue is an urban republic. Then, within the framework of the fight between the Guelfes and the Gibelins, it passes in 1273 pennies the authority of the Bonacolsi (Guelfes), before those are not supplanted in 1328 by the Gonzague (Gibelins), which were dukes of Mantoue.

The disappearance of the direct ducal line was the cause, at the 17th century, of the War of succession of Mantoue, episode peripheral of the Guerre Thirty Year old. The duchy returned however to a branch junior (French, dukes of Nevers) until in 1708, date where it was annexed to the empire Austro-Hungarian.

In 1796, during the countryside of Italy, the seat of the city, then held by the Autrichiens lasted nearly 8 months. The city was taken by the troops of Bonaparte only in January 1797.

Mantoue turns over under the domination of Austria in 1815 with the Congrès of Vienna.

In 1866, it is annexed to the Royaume of Italy.

Principal monuments

Palate You
Ducal Palate
Palate Canossa
House of Mantegna
Basilica San Andrea
Castle of Gonzagues
Theater Bibiena
Palate D' Arco

Personalities born in Mantoue

Virgile, 70-19 av. J. - C., Latin poet, author of the Énéide.
Battista Spagnuoli (v. 1436 - 1516), religious Carmelite nun, writer and poet néo-Latin.
Nadia Santini is a chief-cook of reputation which officiates at the restaurant Dal Pescatore
Tazio Nuvolari champion automobile
Lorenzo Costa the Young person, painter and Ippolito Costa his/her father, painter also
Learco Guerra (1902 - 1963), racing cyclist

Demonstrations

Festivalerattura of Mantoue

Since 1997, the city accommodates, the first fortnight of September, a hundred writers of the whole world during four to five jours.
The literary readings, spectacles, debates invest all the historical places of the city; authors and readers find themselves in the Ducal Palate, the Palate San Sabastiano, the Maison of Mantegna, the palate of Arco, the palate Canossa, the Théâtre Bibiena, on the Place with the Grasses , in the cloisters and the églises.
It is one moment of intense cultural activity where one speaks all the languages in the city and also a great moment about gastronomical discoveries.

Administration

Hamlets

Castelletto Borgo, Formigosa

Communes bordering

Bagnolo San Vito, Curtatone, Oporto Mantovano, Roncoferraro, San Giorgio di Mantova, Virgilio, Revere

Twinnings

See too

List of the Italian cities of more than 25.000 inhabitants

Gallery

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