Tom`s travels: June 2024

On a cold and windy but sunny Sunday, my mom and I decided to head to visit a few towns close to Mantova. We left Vicenza early and reached the first town, Governolo. The place looked quite shabby and abandoned, with trash on the floor and with dilapidated buildings. However, we just briefly stopped to see the Torre Matildica, the remains of a once important 11th-century medieval castle, later demolished by Charles VI Holy Roman Emperor during the early 18th century. The remaining tower and annexed fortified house date to the 14th and 17th centuries respectively. Curiously, Governolo is one of the three places where the meeting between Pope Leo I and Attila in 452 is speculated to have taken place. After the brief visit, we got back in the car and drove to nearby San Benedetto Po. This small town is part of the club the most beautiful villages in Italy. Once there we parked the car and started exploring on foot. We passed through a gate that opens up to the immense square, where the Abbey of San Benedetto in Polirone, the town's main monument is set. I quickly headed to the nearby tourist info point to buy the tickets for the abbey and the museum and then headed inside the abbey church first. The complex was founded in 1007 by Count Tedaldo of Canossa of Mantua and passed then into the hands of the Benedictines under the Abbey of Cluny. It was there that from 1115 until 1632, the abbey church housed the remains of Matilda of Canossa, before being transferred to the Basilica of St. Peter, Rome. Being one of the most powerful and rich abbeys in northern Italy, it was then refurbished several times, once in the Gothic style during the 14th century and again a century later by the famous architect Giulio who adopted original solutions to make the previous architectural styles coexist in a refined and homogeneous way. Once inside we were led by a friendly old man who showed us the church, describing its history, architecture, and illustrating each chapel. In the apse was a beautiful 16th-century wooden choir and behind the location of Matilda's tomb. A door then led into the sacristy, beautifully decorated with wooden wardrobes, marble walls, and a frescoed ceiling. Nearby another door led to the Oratory of Santa Maria, dating to the 11th century and making it the oldest part of the complex. It featured a beautifully preserved floor mosaic and Romanesque columns. Next up we headed out and into the first of the three cloisters, the Chiostro di San Simeone, dating to the 15th century in a late Gothic style. Next to it the much larger Chiostro di San Benedetto, open on one of its sides, most probably destroyed after the abbey was secularized during the Napoleonic invasion in the late 18th century. A short walk then led us to the large refectory holding a copy of the Last Supper by Bonsignori dating to 1515. Below the refectory, in what were probably the cellars were some exhibits of objects found dug out throughout the complex and a section dedicated to carts and other farm equipment. Back across the main square we then reached the third cloister, the Chiostro dei Secolari, the place where pilgrims, guests, and strangers were welcomed. On the first floor after a beautiful 17th-century baroque staircase, was the Museo Civico Polironiano, a nice and large museum dedicated to the Po River-related crafts, handicrafts, art, and folk devotion. After the visit to the abbey we continued our walk through the rest of town, passing by the Campanile di San Floriano, an 11th century bell tower which is all that remains of the former parish church of St. Florian. Nearby we then stopped for lunch at a place called Trattoria da Marte where we had an appetizer of cold cuts and cheese with mostarda, a typical really spicy fruit preserve, and then I had pumpkin gnocchi with mint while my mom had pumpkin tortelli. After lunch we headed to the car and drove on, stopping briefly in the village of Nuvolato to see the church of San Fiorentino. It was founded in 1082 as a single nave church, with two more naves added during the 18th century; its apse contains 13th to 14th-century frescoes. Driving on we had another short break in the town of Quingentole, which featured a nice scenic central square with on one side the once Palace of the Bishops of Mantua, and the other the church of San Lorenzo, dating to the 18th century in a neoclassical style but with late 14th-century red marble lions at its entrance. For yet another brief stop along the way, we reached Pieve di Coriano an 11th-century church said to have been commissioned by Matilda of Canossa. Built in a Romanesque style it features frescoes ranging from the 12th to the 16th centuries, however its bell tower is a reconstruction from the 1930s. Driving on we then reached the town of Revere. We parked the car and immediately admired the large and imposing Palazzo Ducale, a 15th-century palace built for Ludovico III Gonzaga, now featuring inside a museum dedicated to the Po River. In front of the palace standing solitarily is the Torre dei Gonzaga, a 36m high 12th century tower once part of the castle that used to stand there. Strolling through the rest of town we passed through the nice Arco dell'Orologio, once the town's main gate, dating to the 19th century. At the end of the main street, we entered the church of the Annunciazione della Beata Vergine Maria, rebuilt in the 18th century in a neoclassical style. In front of it was a dyke which we walked on with a view of the Po River right below. On the other side of the river, the town of Ostiglia which we reached by driving over the bridge connecting the two towns. Once there we walked along the main street passing by Palazzo Bonazzi, the seat of the town hall, and some other old palaces and buildings one of which was a really nice art nouveau passageway called La Cappa d'Oro. We passed under the Torre Civica, the clock tower once belonging to a castle complex, and nearby we saw the ruins of what was once the church of Santa Maria di Castello. Its bell tower, also surviving, was once part of the aforementioned castle. A curious point of interest was the small stone engraving which indicates the beginning of the ancient Roman road Via Claudia Augusta that once led to what is now Germany. Just as the sun was setting, right outside town, on our way home we also briefly stopped to visit the Santuario della Beata Vergine della Comuna, founded in the 15th century on the initiative of the Duke of Mantua Federico II Gonzaga to easily accommodate pilgrims visiting the former church, which was built following a Marian apparition that occurred, according to tradition, in the late 1300s to a deaf-mute shepherdess who was healed after the episode. Its current 16th-century renaissance style is due to that restructuring potentially by Giulio Romano.