Coming from the east through Verona, the traveller by road might do worse than make a detour of a hundred kilometres out and back to Mantua.
Mantua, on the banks of the Mincio, sits like a water-surrounded town of the Low Countries. Mantua, above all, is a place of war, one of the strongest in North Italy, forming with Verona, Legnago and Peschiera the famous “Quadrilatera.” Mantua has at least a tenth part of its population made up of Jews. It sits partly surrounded by an artificial lake formed by the Mincio, and the marsh land to the south can be flooded, if it is deemed advisable, in case of siege. A great walled enclosure, a series of fortified dykes, and a collection of detached forts roundabout, put Mantua in a class quite by itself. It is a melancholy, unlovely place from an æsthetic standpoint, but picturesque in a certain crude way. The ancient Palazzo Gonzague of the Dukes of Mantua, now known as the Corte Reale, is one of the most ambitious edifices of its class in Italy. The view of the Palazzo Ducale at Mantua, with the rising background of roofs, towers and domes, as seen from the further end of the cobble-stone paved bridge over the Mincio, is delightful. Artists do not like it as a general rule because of the ugly straight line of the bridge, and the “camera fiend” makes a hopeless mess of it, unless he seeks an hour or more for a “point of view;” but for all that the scene is as quaint and beautiful a composition as one can get of unspoiled mediævalism in these progressive times, when usually telegraph poles and tram cars project themselves into focus whether or no. There is nothing of the kind here.
The road from Mantua to Cremona, following the banks of the Mincio, still preserves its Virgilian aspect. Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ. From this one infers that it is a bad road, and in truth it is very bad; automobilists will not like it. Cremona’s tower is seen from afar, like the sailors’ beacon from the sea. It is one of the most hardy and the most renowned Gothic towers of Italy and has a height approximating a hundred and twenty odd metres, say a little less than four hundred feet.
Neighbouring upon this great Torrazo is the Palazzo Gonfaloneri, dating from 1292. These two monuments, together with the magnificent Romanesque Lombard Cathedral of the twelfth century, and the Casa Stradivari—where he who gave his name to a violin lived—are Mantua’s chief “things to see.” If the traveller can include Mantua in his itinerary, which truth to tell is not easy without doubling on one’s tracks, he should do so.
Travellers coming westward from Venice and passing Verona, hastening to the Italian and Swiss lakes, usually give that region lying between Verona and Como little heed. Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and then Switzerland and the Rhine is still too often the itinerary of hurried papas and fond mamas. Even if the automobilist does not drop down on Mantua and Cremona he should take things leisurely through the lake region and stop en route as often as fancy wills. The Lago di Garda is the most easterly of the Italian Lakes and the largest.
It is of great depth, 350 metres or more, is sixty odd kilometres in length, and in places a third as wide. It is a product of the rivers and torrents flowing down from the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The sudden storms which frequently come up to ruffle its bosom were celebrated by some lines of Virgil and his example has been followed by every other traveller ever caught in one of these storms. “Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens” sang the bard, and the words still echo down through time.