Half-day Guided tour of Mantua City Centre and Ducal Palace

Mantua is surrounded by a beautiful environment, in which water and earth are unexpectedly interwoven. Settled by the Etruscans the city enjoyed a position of status in the early modern world. 1198 the city optimized the Mincio river, creating the so-called 'four lakes'.

From the Middle Ages Mantua was ruled by the art-loving Gonzaga dynasty, one of Italy's most important patrons of Renaissance art. The Gonzagas long cultivated a court which included some of the most illustrious artists and intellectuals of the 15th and 16th century like Pisanello, Mantegna, Correggio, Giulio Romano, Rubens and Monteverdi. It is impossible to go to any of the world's great public galleries and museums without finding a picture, a jewel or a precious object that once formed part of the Gonzaga collection in Mantua, a collection completely dispersed in 1630 when Mantua was seized by the Habsburg family.

Discover the Ducal Palace and the rooms, still painted with frescos, where these treasures were displayed and kept. The tour starts close to one of the small lakes of Mantua in the city centre and it goes through the main city squares, Piazza Sordello, Piazza Broletto, Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza Mantegna surrounded by beautiful medieval buildings and churches like the romanesque round church of Saint Lawrence and the great Sant'Andrea Basilica planned by L.B.Alberti.

The tour continues with the visit of the Gonsagas' ducal palace and the famous camera degli Sposi (bridal chamber) painted by Mantegna in Saint George castle.