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MANTUA
40km
(25 miles) S of Verona, 153km (95
miles) SE of Milan, 469km (291
miles) NW of Rome, 145km (90
miles) SW of Venice.
The
Gonzaga family ruled over this
city for four hundred years. They
encouraged the growth of art and
architecture making the writer
Aldous Huxley call Mantua
"the most romantic city in
the world." The city has been
conquered many times, it started
out as an Etruscan settlement,
which later a Roman colony and was
later, that is in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries invaded
by the French and the Austrians.
The latin poet Virgil was born in
Andes just outside the city, and
he is still regarded as its most
famous son. Shakespeare used it as
a sanctuary for Romeo, and Verdi
set his Rigoletto here. Modern
Mantua is clean and traffic free,
but it is a city of the past and
appears impressive and at times
austere
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