Mantova: una bellisima citta

Aldous Huxley got it wrong. Or maybe he saw Mantova on a bad day. In any event, his description of this Lombardy town was uncompromising.

Over no city, he said, ‘did there brood so profound a melancholy as over Mantua; none seemed so dead or so utterly bereft of glory. And not Mantua alone. For wherever the Gonzaga lived, they left behind them the same pathetic emptiness, the same pregnant desolation, the same echoes, the same ghosts of splendour’ (Along the Road  1925).

The people of Mantova must be heartily sick of Huxley. As we enter Palazzo Ducale, we see a number of quotes about Mantova stencilled on the wall. ‘Bet you Huxley doesn’t get a look-in’, we both said (or words to that effect). 

But we were wrong, too.

The Huxley quote was there on the wall (although heavily edited) next to a glowing endorsement from Torquato Tasso:

Huxley’s description puts me in mind of Ava Gardner’s take on Melbourne, a city she visited in 1959 to make a post-apocalyptic science fiction film called On The Beach. Melbourne, she said, was ‘the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world’.  

Mantova, it seems, is way ahead of Melbourne in managing celebrity slap-downs. All we’d need to do, really, to fix the Melbourne slight is quote Gardner saying ‘Melbourne. The perfect place to make a film...”. 

But back to Mantova. 

Not a whole lot of people include this town on their itinerary because unlike Verona, it’s not on a main tourist route. It’s a 45-minute regional train ride from Verona, en-route to Modena.

Mantova is Verona writ small, and that’s a plus. It means fewer crowds and less traffic, and an authenticity that’s not compromised by the Romeo and Juliet thing. 

A priority for our day-trip was to visit Palazzo Te, an extraordinarily large summer villa built in the 1500s. Its frescoed rooms are a sight to behold, especially the Sala dei Giganti (room of the giants). Here, painting and architecture conspire to portray giants crushed by Jupiter’s thunderbolts. 

Another priority was lunch. 

Food-lovers wax lyrical about Mantova specialities such as Tortelli di zucca (pasta stuffed with pumpkin and amaretti) and Torta sbrisolona (a crumble cake with almonds), both of which were on the menu at La Fragoletta.

Let me just say, the entire meal was worth the trip. In between the pasta and the torta was a sautéed breast of guinea fowl, served with broad beans, celery and peaches. Heaven. Thanks to Naturally Epicurean for the recommendation.

Well-fortified, we were ready to take on Palazzo Ducale in the afternoon. 

If I had my time again, I’d stay in Mantova overnight, at least, and tour Palazzo Ducale on day two with a guide. Art historian and guide Lorenzo Bonoldi would be ideal.

This fortress and palace was home for the Gonzaga princes. It’s massive and richly storied, with 700 rooms and 15 courtyards. And that’s just the palazzo.  Next to it is Castello di San Giorgio, a fortress celebrated as the home of magnificent Renaissance paintings by Mantegna.

One ticket buys you entry into both sites. 

So you can imagine the ticket collector at the entrance to Palazzo Ducale was aghast when we confessed to not having time to visit the fortress. What? No Mantegna?

Sad but true. We had a return train to catch and just one afternoon to enjoy a fraction of the palazzo’s many rooms. Ghosts of splendour sometimes reveal themselves at first glance. But not always.