The Historic Centre: a thousand years in one walk

Mantua is a city suspended on water, built in the middle of three lakes. Since 2008 its centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage site: communal squares and Renaissance courts follow one another without interruption, and every corner has a story to tell.

Piazza Sordello, the square of power

We start from the oldest and most theatrical square: Piazza Sordello, heart of medieval and Gonzaga Mantua, dominated by the façade of the Ducal Palace and by St Peter's Cathedral, with its white eighteenth-century marble front and an interior redesigned by Giulio Romano. Here I will tell you about the battle of 16 August 1328 that handed the city to the Gonzaga for almost four centuries.

Piazza delle Erbe, the heart of the city

Passing through Piazza Broletto — with the medieval statue of Virgil, the poet Mantua gave to Rome — we reach Piazza delle Erbe: the Palazzo della Ragione with its tower, the fifteenth-century astronomical clock that told citizens the right days to sow and to marry, the workshops under the porticoes. And a gem most tourists miss: the Rotonda di San Lorenzo, the oldest church in the city, built at the end of the eleventh century, round like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Basilica of Sant'Andrea

The grand finale is the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, designed by Leon Battista Alberti in 1470 and completed over centuries, up to the great eighteenth-century dome by Filippo Juvarra. It is the building that opens the era of modern architecture: a Roman triumphal arch turned into a church. Inside, the first chapel on the left holds the tomb of Andrea Mantegna, and the crypt preserves the Sacred Vessels with the relic of the Most Precious Blood, carried in procession through the city every Good Friday.

A walk designed around you

Two hours on foot, at a holiday pace: we walk, we stop for a coffee, we enter where it is worth entering. The route adapts to you — more art, more court intrigue, more curiosities for the children — and on fine days it can stretch to the lakeside, where the city appears as travellers saw it centuries ago. The tour pairs beautifully with the Ducal Palace or Palazzo Te in the half-day Mantua Experience.