Off the A22, 67 km North of Modena. By way of boulevards, banks and other places of commerce you enter the city of Virgil (he was born 8 km to the south, near modern Pietole), a ducal capital long renowned, her silvery campanili shining, her tiny rii (canals) trickling under tottering walls, her lakes and lagoons spreading to purple hills. On piazza Sordello the ducal palace is a complex of 500 stately rooms and about 50 courtyards, each a statement of Gonzaga extravagance. There are scaled-down apartments for dwarves, a staircase for horses, a hall of mirrors, a maze-puzzle celling.

Castello San Giorgio just around the corner has the Mantegna masterpiece, the walls of the bridal chamber, covered with scenes of courtly life on which, from the painted dome, impudent putti (naked babies) peer down in ingenious perspective. In the same group of buildings, known as the Reggia, are the cathedral, the Bonacolsi palace, the domed basilica of Sant’ Andrea, the 13thC Ragione palace next to a tower with a large 15 thC astronomical clock – and the so-called house of Rigoletto.

Take all Rigoletto associations – Gilda in Sant’ Andrea, peeping at the Duke, the Maddalena tavern on the marshes – with a pinch of salt. For political reasons Verdi transferred the opera’s setting from its real location, Paris. Likewise a fiction is Romeo ‘standing at the rusty gate of stagnant Mantua’ – he was never there.

Walk (15 minutes) or drive south to the Gonzaga summer retreat, Palazzo Tè, another flamboyant showcase of painted horses, giants and Bacchanalia (the latter explicit even to modern eyes). The place is decrepit and deprived of its lake, but long-term renovation is taking place. On the way to it you pass Mantegna’s house, another Renaissance gem (1476).

A bronze bust of Tazio Nuvolari,possibly the greatest racing motorist in history, is in the public garden on Viale Nuvolari, near the railway station. His tomb is at Casteldario outside the city. The inscription says: ‘Now he travels still faster on the highways of Heaven’.

Detour – Gonzaga 

Off the A22 at Pegognaga, 23 km South of Mantua. Around a ruined castle and a decrepit mansion you muse on the fates of dynasties and the mutability of human affairs. The insignificant village recalls a nobody who split warring factions and seized Mantua in 1328; his descendants who enjoyed power and glory for four centuries, during which they patronised Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto and Mantegna; and the last Inglorious Gonzaga who threw it all away and died disgraced.

Detour – Correggio

Off the A22 on Route 468, 47 km South East of Mantua. An old city of the plain, a small replica of Mantua. The Palazzo dei Principe has Mantegna’s Redeemer and some elaborate Flemish tapestries. On Route 255, 60 km South East of Modena. The abbey has a treasury and archive of documents signed by Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, Countess Matilda and other potentates of the Middle Ages.

Detour – Novellara

Off the A22, 33 km South East of Modena. Here and at Guastalla, 14 km north, are two typical palace-forts of the Gonzagas, part of the Mantuan defensive system. Novellara also has two Gonzaga villas, Casino di Sopra and Casino di Sotto.