VisitMantua @ Bit2013

It's business time! VisitMantua is going to attend to BIT - International Tourism Exchange, the event leader in the Italian sector with 2,000 exhibitors from 120 Countries. Waiting for it, let's have a look to the opinion of some of our best clients!
Your satisfaction is our business!

Lorenzo Bonoldi is one of our company's finest local guides in Italy. His pre-tour preparations (maps, pictures, and mini-histories) are unique and impressive, and our travelers love his great combination of broad knowledge and accessible presentation. When we take our clients who have toured with Lorenzo to other countries, they often ask: "Find us a French/English/German Lorenzo Bonoldi!"
Jordan Cook
Program Manager - International Seminar Design, Inc.

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Not only has his expertise of art, history and culture proved to be superior; but his manner of professionalism and utmost respect for my groups has proved Mr. Bonoldi as our company's preferred guide in Italy. On several occasions my clients have specifically requested Mr. Bonoldi as their group's guide after having experienced one of his tours. When booking a tour with Mr. Bonoldi, I can consistently count on Mr. Bonoldi's proficiency and organization to cultivate an atmosphere of positive interaction amongst my groups. If I could travel to every European city with Mr. Lorenzo Bonoldi as my guide, I most certainly would.
Elizabeth Deans
Program Manager - International Seminar Design, Inc.
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We had the most fantastic time in reaching out to meet the Cultural Authorities to Save the Ducal Palace of Mantova, weakened after the earthquake. Lorenzo Bonoldi was our cultural diplomat.
Lorenzo, you were well prepared, well informed and I knew you were only a phone call away. The meetings were engaging and forward, the hotel warm and welcoming. You are an excellent guide. In addition to the visits to the Ducal Palace, you gave us lively and informative commentaries during our journeys in and around Mantova. We appreciated your great knowledge of Mantova and your command of Italian & English languages. We liked your very interesting, well-timed commentaries on the places we were visiting, your good provision for each stage of our daily trips, your real competence and good manner (and good jokes).
We praise you for all the arrangements and the meticulous detail and communications you provided for arranging a most exceptional tour to the “Arts and Palaces of Mantova”, which helped to make everything go so smoothly and such a success. I choose the word “exceptional” with care since it cannot often happen that you could visit a closed Ducal Palace for a noble cause of saving the frescoes of Andrea Mantegna!
Thank you Lorenzo for fielding the passion to draw the international attention on the cultural devastations of the earthquake in Emilia Romagna! Your programme was just right being a balance of culture, history, leisure and sightseeing completed by our visit to Palazzo Te. What can I say! Just faultless!
∀lessandro Berg∀
Editor - Mode Diplomatique
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A guided tour with Lorenzo Bonoldi is a sublime experience. He is highly knowledgeable about Italian art, architecture, and history, and has great passion for his work. He has guided me around Italy's historic sights and helped immeasurably with my research. He is also charming, engaging, and flexible. Lorenzo is truly a gentleman and a scholar, and he will enhance the Italian experience for both the casual tourist and the serious scholar alike.

Karen Essex
Author of the international bestseller "Leonardo's Swans"

Generosity from Scotland

This young and gifted guy, an award-winning bagpiper who is going to join the army of Her Majesty the Queen, has visited Mantua last weekend.

At the end of the guided tour he opened his sporran and extracted some money to donate for the restoration of the Ducal Palace in Mantua, damaged by the earthquake.

I am REALLY touched.

La generosità arriva dalla Scozia

Questo giovanissimo e talentuoso ragazzo, pluripremiato suonatore di cornamusa in procinto di arruolarsi nell'esercito di Sua Maestà, ha visitato Mantova lo scorso weekend. Al termine della visita ha aperto il suo sporran e ne ha estratto del denaro da donare per il restauro del Palazzo Ducale di Mantova, danneggiato dal terremoto. Ne sono commosso.

Save the Ducal Palace of Mantua

 

The Ducal Palace in Mantua is commonly described as "a city within the city": a labyrinth of more than five hundred rooms, corridors and courtyards, which, together with the gardens, covers an area of over 35.000 meters squared.

A truly monumental complex, consisting of buildings constructed at different times and for different purposes, then connected by stairs, corridors and hallways.

The palace, which has been the home and headquarters of the Gonzaga family for almost four centuries (1328 to 1707), is an extraordinary composite of the history of European art and architecture.

Examples of the Gothic, Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque periods are here joined together, in wonderful harmony, and - above all - the Ducal Palace is today the home of extraordinary priceless works of art: frescoes by Pisanello, Mantegna and Giulio Romano, paintings by Rubens and Domenico Fetti, and tapestries designed by Raphael. These masterpieces make the Palace a museum attracting visitors from all over the world: more than 220 thousand tourists visited it during the year 2011.

But this extraordinary monument is now in difficulty: the repeated earthquakes which struck Mantua since May 21st, inflicted a great deal of damage to the Palace. More than fifty rooms were affected.

The bell tower of the Palatine Basilica of St. Barbara, the private church of the Gonzagas, built within the Ducal Palace between 1562 and 1572, was beheaded on May 29th: the lantern of the tower collapsed and falling on the Ducal Palace, shattered its roof and broke the marble balustrade of an attic.

The late-Gothic Castle of St. George (born at first as a military structure, and then converted to a residence for the Gonzaga family) is in an alarming situation: an old crack on the frescoes by Mantegna in the Bridal Chamber, has reopened and enlarged, with loss of colour.

In other areas of the Castle the damage is even more evident: the conspicuous fall of plaster and the opening of cracks crossing the walls from one side to the other are clear signs of structural problems, which can undermine the stability and security of the entire building.

In the New Court a big crack has opened, crossing - from the floor up to the ceiling - the wall which separates the Room of Manto and the Room the Captains, with significant falls of plaster and stucco.

In the same area of the Ducal Palace, a visible difference in the level of the floor between two adjoining rooms is the clear symptom of the movement of the underlying structures. Other lesions can be seen in the Loggia del Tasso.

The scientific surveys, carried out on the entire Ducal Palace, has revealed a situation of weakness and fragility of the complex.

 

In the weeks immediately following the earthquakes, a first small portion of the Ducal Palace was reopened to visitors.

In September, the number of rooms made safe and reopened was increased, reaching to cover almost a third of the extension of the Ducal Palace, corresponding to the Old Court, the area less affected. Unfortunately the Castle of St. George (where the Manegna frescoes are) and the New Court are still closed.

The first approximate estimate of the funds needed for the restoration of the Ducal Palace was about 5 millions of Euros (i.e. 6.600.000 US Dollars / 4.000.000 British Pounds). A similar amount would be needed for the seismic retrofitting of the entire complex.

Although this amount should now to be recalculated on the real data collected during the early stages of the surveys, it is clear that, even in the most optimistic forecasts, the cost of the restoration of the Ducal Palace in Mantua is going to be huge.

The Italian Government has already allocated some funds for the Restoration, and more than 150.000 Euros (i.e. 197.000 US Dollars / 122.000 British Pounds) have been raised thanks to the generosity of private donors.

The donations collected so far represent a trill of hope, mostly in the way of general uncertainty which characterizes this historical moment. Anyway the situation of the Ducal Palace still remains a cause for concern. The real risk is that the needs of this monument, which has guaranteed Mantua the inclusion of the UNSECO list of the World Heritage Sites, may be put in the background by the financial crisis.

The plea is therefore spread to all men and women of good will: Save the Ducal Palace of Mantua!

In Mantua, looking for Romeo.

We are going to give a special tour for a group from the “Bryn Mawr Alumnae Association”. This visit will be a part of an extensive tour provided by International Seminar Design INC, focusing on Shakespeare’s Italy. The group will be led by Katherine Rowe, (Ph.D., Harvard), Professor of English, Director of the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center and Director of Digital Research and Teaching. As the tour program says, Renaissance Italy looms in the imagination of Shakespeare and his contemporaries: nearly a third of Shakespeare’s plays and poems mention specific sites and events in the country, or adapt Italian sources and literary models. During the past, Italy offered to English writers a cultural model to admire, imitate, and seek to surpass. Modern Italy has returned the passion, making fictional Shakespearean settings into real pilgrimage sites. 

Mantua has been chosen as a step of this tour for three main circumstances:

• Mantua and the Forest of Mantua are specified settings in two Shakespeare plays: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act IV, scene 1 and Act V, scene 3), and Romeo and Juliet (Act V, scene 1).
• Giulio Romano, the architect and painter who designed, built and decorated Palazzo Te, has the distinction of being the only modern artist mentioned by Shakespeare: the Bard called him “that rare Italian Master” (The Winter’s Tale, V.2.96-8).
• Mantua has been used as a splendid movie set for the upcoming film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The tragedy has been adapted by the Oscar-winning director and writer Julian Fellowes, and the movie, directed by Carlo Carlei, is going to be a traditional version similar to Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of the tragedy. The cast includes hot stars-in-the-making such as Douglas Booth (Romeo), Hailee Steinfeld (Juliet) and Ed Westwick (Tybalt).The movie is going to be on the screens on the day of St. Valentine (14th February 2013).

Music at the Ducal Palace, to save the Ducal Palace.

This weekend – 29th and 30th September, we celebrate the "European Heritage Days".

On this occasion the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Fabiano, is going to offer some concerts to the Ducal Palace, affected by the recent earthquakes. The Orchestra is going to perform music by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Debussy and Verdi, in some of the most enchanting rooms of the Palace.

The admission for the Palace, and for the concerts as well, will be free of charge.

Although the concerts are free, we’d love to emphasize the difference between "offered by the artists" and "no paid" ... these events are organized to help the restorations, so: Be generous!

The "Society for the Ducal Palace in Mantua" will collect via web (also using PayPal) any donation in favor of the restoration needed to reopen the Castle of San Giorgio, the Bridal Chamber by Mantegna and the New Court. Thanks for any help that you give the support of the restoration of the Ducal Palace in Mantua.

Earthquake: partial reopening of the Ducal Palace

A third of the Ducal Palace – the part who has been affected by minor damages during the earthquake – is now reopened.

The visitor’s route includes:

The Duchesses' Staircase; Domenico Morone's "Battle between the Gonzagas and the Bonacolsis"; The medieval Captain’s Palace; Pisanello's Arthurian frescoes; The New Gallery; The Room of the Archers (with Rubens' "The Gonzaga family adoring the Holy Trinity"); Gallery of the Mirrors (ballroom); Vincenzo Gonzaga's apartment;  the Hall of the Rivers facing Hanging Garden; Tapestries by Raphael; Neoclassical Apartment “Of the Empress”; the private Rooms of Isabella d’Este.

The most valuable part of the Palace is still closed , awaiting for restoration (and funds).

The closed areas are:

The Castle of St. George; the Bridal Chamber ("Camera Picta" aka "Camera degli Sposi") frescoed by Mantegna; The Room of Manto; The New Court; The Room of the Horses; the Room of the Heads; the Room of Troy by Giulio Romano; The Gallery of the Marbles, The Gallery of the Exhibition facing the Cortile della Cavallerizza (Horses Courtyard), the Apartment of the Metamorphosis facing the Botanic Garden.

The Zodiac Room and the Chamber of the Popes (in the Old Court) are occupied by scaffolds: you can pass through them, but you won’t be able to see the frescoes.

 

The restoration is going to take a long time – maybe years. And mostly, the Ducal Palace needs and deserves help in the fundraising.
If you wish to give this help, please feel free to donate.
All donations will be collected by the “Società per il Palazzo Ducale” as a contribution for the restoration and the recovery of the artistic heritage damaged by the earthquakes.
You can donate – also using PayPal – through the website of the Society.

The Society will assure the correct use of the funds, which will be spent under the control of the Direction of the Ducal Palace.

Thank you for every kind of your help you will provide with, saving the Ducal Palace of Mantua.

 

Festivaletteratura: the main cultural festival in Mantua

Festivaletteratura is a literary fair, held in Mantua, Italy, since 1997. It is the main cultural festival of the city: five days of small-sized lectures by authors from all over the world. The lectures - about two hundred events - are usually hosted in historical venues like palaces, cloisters and squares. The event is run mostly by volunteers, numbering around 700 in total.

The low-profile style has in time attracted many big names of literature, along with Nobel Prize winners.

One of the most important guest of this edition will be Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum. He is going to give a speech on Sept 8^th, at the Bibiena Theatre (event n.139).

Discover more: http://www.festivaletteratura.it/index.php.

The attendance to the events roughly matches the population of the city, so it would be better to book tickets and accommodation in advance.