Mantua Culture

Mantua’s culture is court culture, preserved because nothing rich enough came afterwards to replace it. Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi, finished in 1474, puts the Gonzaga family on the walls of a working room and opens the ceiling into a painted sky — the first illusionistic ceiling of its kind, and the direct ancestor of everything baroque that followed.

The food is Mantuan rather than Lombard. Tortelli di zucca are filled with pumpkin, amaretti and mostarda, giving a sweet-sharp result that surprises people expecting savoury. Risotto alla pilota is cooked dry with pork sausage, and sbrisolona is a hard almond crumble cake broken by hand rather than cut.

The Teatro Bibiena, a small bell-shaped theatre finished in 1769, hosted a thirteen-year-old Mozart a few weeks after it opened. It is still in use.

Festivaletteratura, held each September, is one of Europe’s larger literary festivals and takes over the squares for five days — a contemporary institution rather than a heritage one.