Sabbioneta is a town and comune in the province of Mantua, Lombardy region, Northern Italy. 
It is situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Parma, not far from the northern bank of the Po River. 
It was inscribed in the World Heritage List in 2008.Sabbioneta sm.jpg)
was founded by Vespasiano I Gonzaga in the late 16th century
along the ancient Roman Via Vitelliana, on a sandy bank of the Po 
(whence the name, meaning "Sandy" in Italian); he was its first duke, using it as a personal fortress and residence.sm.jpg)
(Aerial view of Sabbioneta. After the Victory gate of the town. ). If you have an interest in military history then the one place
you would go before you go to all the famous touristic places is Sabbioneta (and of course Palmanove).sm.jpg)
It's called a ghost town by some but is nothing of the sort. Above are typical soldiers of the times.
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It was also during this period that it became a minor musical centre; composers such as Benedetto 
Pallavicino were employed here by Vespasiano Gonzaga, prior to his moving to the main Gonzaga city of Mantua.Main sights
Pallavicino were employed here by Vespasiano Gonzaga, prior to his moving to the main Gonzaga city of Mantua.Main sightsSabbioneta is also known for its Jewish Ghetto and Synagogue, and in particular for its Hebrew printing-
press. In 1551 the press; , however, published certain "anti-Christian books" and its career was
"forcibly ended". this work and possibly his type were taken up by a Christian printer,.In 2008, 
Sabbioneta was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a recognition of its perfect example of practical application of Renaissance urban planning theories.
Renaissance Italy was populated with numerous important and innovative people. Lesser-known figures, however, also played a significant role in framing the discourse between politics,
philosophic thought, art practice, and self-fashioning as a practical modus for change. Vespasiano Gonzaga (1532-1591), the duke of Sabbioneta, purposefully embodied such an aspiration.
He also represented a new type of man, made popular by Baldessare Castiglione, a uomo universale. 
Such a type of man developed in the 15th century from a notion best expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, that a man 'can do all
things if he will.'he link between the ideality of the prince’s city and that of himself as a ‘constructed’ person will be 
explored, set against the backdrop of his interest in architecture, art, and his many years spent in Spain.
philosophic thought, art practice, and self-fashioning as a practical modus for change. Vespasiano Gonzaga (1532-1591), the duke of Sabbioneta, purposefully embodied such an aspiration. He also represented a new type of man, made popular by Baldessare Castiglione, a uomo universale. Such a type of man developed in the 15th century from a notion best expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, that a man 'can do all things if he will.'he link between the ideality of the prince’s city and that of himself as a ‘constructed’ person will be explored, set against the backdrop of his interest in architecture, art, and his many years spent in Spain.
On a Sunday morning, I was chatting at breakfast with another traveler. He asked me if I had yet visited the unusual small city near Mantua called Sabbioneta. 
I had never heard of it. He said it was well worth a visit, being a showcase of idealistic architecture, and completely constructed
in only one architectural style, the latesixteenth-century style called “Mannerist.”
I had never heard of it. He said it was well worth a visit, being a showcase of idealistic architecture, and completely constructed in only one architectural style, the latesixteenth-century style called “Mannerist.”
Moreover it was entirely built during the reign, and under the personal supervision, of its sixteenth-century duke, Vespasiano Gonzaga, a man of singular erudition.
He mentioned this to me, he said, because on Sundays, this very day, escorted tours were offered to the visiting public, 
since Sabbioneta had recently been restored to be almost as it was when originally built in the sixteenth century. I was intrigued. 
It would be only a bit of a detour, I realized it would have been under construction, with some of it completed, 
around 1573 or 1574 .Sabbioneta is about forty-five kilorneters—only twenty-five miles—southwest of Mantua, on Highway 420, and is still 
surrounded by its massive walls. I easily drove through the handsome fortified gate, Porta Vittoria, which stood welcoming on its western flank, noting the attractively paved interior 
streets, as I entered the little city. Straight ahead, I saw a small crowd of people standing in front of a building. I parked nearby. From the sign on the front of the building, I knew it was the local tourist office, and a smaller placard said this was the very hour for which a city tour was scheduled. I bought a tour ticket and was given a brochure entitled La Piccola Atena— ”Little Athens.” I also purchased a tourist guide in English, with full color pictures and a descriptive text of more than seventy pages. Our guide explained the carefully planned layout of the city’s streets and plazas, and she told us about the wealthy, enlightened duke who had built the city. He was Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna (1531-1591), a member of the cadet branch of the powerful Gonzaga of Mantua. Vespasiano was born on 6 December 1531, in Forli, in the Papal State of Romagna. His father, Luigi Gonzaga, was an illustrious condottiere in the service of Emperor Charles V. Luigi, usually called “Rodomonte,” died when Vespasiano was only one year old. As a teenager, Vespasiano was sent to the Royal Court of Spain, there to acquire an education in both academics and military disciplines. In service to Philip II, he rose in rank to become experienced in warfare, then a commanding general, a viceroy, and builder in both Europe and North Africa. Vespasiano was an avid student of Vitruvius,
the Roman architect and engineer who wrote De Architectura—the only surviving Roman treatise on the subject—which he carried with him at all tunes, even during battle.below another star fort city , almeida in portugul 
Along our guided way, we visited the interiors of a number of impressive buildings, including the once-elegant ducal palazzo, the summer palace, and other structures housing the duke’s galleries, museum, personal church and ducal mausoleum, an elegant small theater, and even his long gallery for exercise, traditional for noblemen of his day. I remembered that in other ducal palaces I had visited, such facilities were included as part of the palace.below tilbury in london 
Here, however, the city itself was largely the palace of the duke. Indeed, his guards, physician, aides, and servants were accommodated in various edifices within the city. In every case, all designs, materials, and the details.Some of the buildings in Sabbioneta were originally commodious quarters for the duke’s invited guests, his pleasure having been in inviting the erudite among both Italy’s, and other western Europe’s, nobility and intelligentsia for a visit to his model city. While there, they would admire his rich collections of paintings and sculpture and take part in the festivities, salons, and scholarly lectures that he sponsored during his lifetime. Thus, in addition to the name “Sabbioneta,” Vespasiano Gonzaga’s guests—and then its steadily increasing numbers of visitors—gave it a second name,
neuf-brisach He mentioned this to me, he said, because on Sundays, this very day, escorted tours were offered to the visiting public, since Sabbioneta had recently been restored to be almost as it was when originally built in the sixteenth century. I was intrigued. It would be only a bit of a detour, I realized it would have been under construction, with some of it completed, around 1573 or 1574 .Sabbioneta is about forty-five kilorneters—only twenty-five miles—southwest of Mantua, on Highway 420, and is still surrounded by its massive walls. I easily drove through the handsome fortified gate, Porta Vittoria, which stood welcoming on its western flank, noting the attractively paved interior streets, as I entered the little city. Straight ahead, I saw a small crowd of people standing in front of a building. I parked nearby. From the sign on the front of the building, I knew it was the local tourist office, and a smaller placard said this was the very hour for which a city tour was scheduled. I bought a tour ticket and was given a brochure entitled La Piccola Atena— ”Little Athens.” I also purchased a tourist guide in English, with full color pictures and a descriptive text of more than seventy pages. Our guide explained the carefully planned layout of the city’s streets and plazas, and she told us about the wealthy, enlightened duke who had built the city. He was Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna (1531-1591), a member of the cadet branch of the powerful Gonzaga of Mantua. Vespasiano was born on 6 December 1531, in Forli, in the Papal State of Romagna. His father, Luigi Gonzaga, was an illustrious condottiere in the service of Emperor Charles V. Luigi, usually called “Rodomonte,” died when Vespasiano was only one year old. As a teenager, Vespasiano was sent to the Royal Court of Spain, there to acquire an education in both academics and military disciplines. In service to Philip II, he rose in rank to become experienced in warfare, then a commanding general, a viceroy, and builder in both Europe and North Africa. Vespasiano was an avid student of Vitruvius, the Roman architect and engineer who wrote De Architectura—the only surviving Roman treatise on the subject—which he carried with him at all tunes, even during battle.below another star fort city , almeida in portugul Along our guided way, we visited the interiors of a number of impressive buildings, including the once-elegant ducal palazzo, the summer palace, and other structures housing the duke’s galleries, museum, personal church and ducal mausoleum, an elegant small theater, and even his long gallery for exercise, traditional for noblemen of his day. I remembered that in other ducal palaces I had visited, such facilities were included as part of the palace.below tilbury in london Here, however, the city itself was largely the palace of the duke. Indeed, his guards, physician, aides, and servants were accommodated in various edifices within the city. In every case, all designs, materials, and the details.Some of the buildings in Sabbioneta were originally commodious quarters for the duke’s invited guests, his pleasure having been in inviting the erudite among both Italy’s, and other western Europe’s, nobility and intelligentsia for a visit to his model city. While there, they would admire his rich collections of paintings and sculpture and take part in the festivities, salons, and scholarly lectures that he sponsored during his lifetime. Thus, in addition to the name “Sabbioneta,” Vespasiano Gonzaga’s guests—and then its steadily increasing numbers of visitors—gave it a second name,
La Piccola Atena—”Little Athens”—not because of its architecture but because of its immediate reputation as a hospitable gathering place for scholars and intellectuals. With Vespasiano’s passing in 1591, all this ended. Only since the latter half of the twentieth century—a hiatus of some 400 years—have many of these same kinds of events been offered again, with prominent Italian scholars of relevant arts, histories, and literature participating. Toward the end of the tour, as we stood in the shade of the arched Porta della Vittoria, the architectural main gate of Sabbioneta, our guide explained that this passageway was also known as “il Quercia dei Duca.” Not understanding the word Quercia I questioned one of our group. “Oak,” he said, “the Duke’s Oak.” I gasped in disbelief. Thinking I had misunderstood, he repeated, “The guide said, ‘the Duke’s Oak.’’’ My breath nearly left me, and I steadied myself against the wall. The Duke’s Oak? Could it be true
Vespasiano Gonzaga's town, designed according to the Renaissance principles of the Ideal City, included:
- The Ducal Palace (now the Town Hall)
- You approach Sabbioneta and you see just this, the exact same thing an invading army would have seen in the time of its creator Vespasiano Gonzaga.
He called it the perfect city and nothing has changed. It is maybe the only if not one of the very few places that is perfectly walled with a functioning town inside.The 5,000 people who live here have four schools,restuarants and an incredible array of real time original architecture.
to be continued) I will be carrying on with this and also discussing soldiers of the period and other Star Forts plus the wars of the times so keep coming . - Enlightenment scholars called Sabbioneta “the little Athens of the Po”, considering it as the true Renaissance “ideal city”, it is actually a “little Rome” created by the maecenas prince Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna on the model of ancient Roman cities. Vespasiano, being viceroy of Navarre, had already designed the citadel of Pamplona in Spain, and when he chose to build his own State-city in his native land, he designed it with an urban planning that takes into account the Renaissance functional and modern vision.
The town has a grid plan and the urban structure has the form of a six-pointed star with public spaces and monuments playing an important role in the city life. In Sabbioneta there is a dreamlike dimension, a sort of calm madness due to the fact that the urban structure has not been altered, as it was blocked in 1591, like a city petrified in its evolution that was born and died with its creator.
Porta Victoria (1567), with its façade made of marble and brick, is the main entrance to the city; going on Via dei Serviti is the Chiesa dell’Incoronata (1586-88); the church has an octagonal plan and houses the mausoleum of Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna with a bronze statue of the duke made by Leone Leoni.
A few steps away is Piazza Ducale from where it is possible to see the rigour of the urban plan of Sabbioneta. Piazza Ducale is a rectangular square bounded on the southern side by an arched portico, by the angular view of Palazzetto del Cavalleggero on the western side and by the Church of the Assumption on the northern one. This church was built in 1578 and later adorned in 1767 in rococo style: with just one nave it is enriched by a eighteenth-century side chapel by Antonio Bibiena.
On Piazza Ducale are also Palazzo della Ragione and Palazzo Ducale: the first one was the ancient seat of Ducal community and vicar´s residence; while the other one was the administrative and public life centre of the small state of Sabbioneta. It was built in two phases (1556-68 and 1557-90) and has four levels: basement, ground floor, first floor and mezzanine floor, the latter used as a residence of the Duke. The façade is divided in two parts by a string-course: the five rusticated arches of the loggia correspond to the five windows of the first floor that are surmounted by triangular and curvilinear tympanums. On the lintel is the inscription VESP Duke. D. G. DVX SABLON. I. (Vespasiano first Duke of Sabbioneta by the grace of God).
Even though the rooms at the ground floor underwent numerous spoliations and a heavy rationalist restoration, valuable carved wooden ceilings still remain, covered with pure gold such as in the room called Sala del Duca d’Alba, also known as Sala d’Oro, where there is an imposing fireplace with lions made in pink marble and frescoes, now faded, attributed to followers of Giulio Romano.
The first floor is richer in iconography, in the hall called Sala delle Aquile are four surviving statues of the Cavalcata, a series of equestrian wood statues sculpted in 1587 by a venetian artist to celebrate the military virtues of Gonzaga Family: in the foreground is the statue of Vespasiano in armor with the collar of the Toson d’Oro order of chivalry. The Sala degli Imperatori houses a precious carved and gilded ceiling (1561-62) and gather the wooden crests of the families Gonzaga, Colonna and Aragon.
Twenty bas-relief portraying Vespasiano’s ancestors are exhibited in the Galleria degli Antenati, while in the Sala degli Elefanti, a line of elephants is on the frieze. The elaborate wooden ceiling of the Sala dei Leoni is the first of a series of four carved ceilings and is the only one made in walnut; the others are made in Lebanon cedar, a strong and valuable wood, carved in the typical Mannerist style as Spanish goldsmithry was.
On Piazza San Rocco are the seventeenth-century Church of San Rocco with frescoes by Giovanni Morini and the Synagogue on the second floor of a group of houses that formed the ancient Jewish agglomeration. The Synagogue, built by the architect Carlo Visioli in 1824, has a valuable stuccoed vault made by Swiss artist Peter Bull (1840). After the restoration of 1994 it was reopened for worship and the public.
Teatro all’Antica (1588-90), going on Via Teatro from Piazza Ducale, is the first example of a permanent theater in Europe; originally it was a separate building, not bound to any existing structure. This wonderful theater was designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi who was called to Sabbioneta by Vespasiano after having designed the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. On the lower side of the façade are the portal and windows surrounded by a smooth ashlar, while Doric pilaster strips divide niches and windows on the upper one.
The interior has a rectangular plan with a semicircular open gallery with twelve Corinthian pillars on which rest the statues of the Olympian gods; five steps join the porch with the auditorium and so the audience was put at the centre of the scene thanks to continuity among the different spaces. The sloping floor and the ceiling accentuated the sense of depth and the feeling of being in an open space, as in the greek-roman amphitheaters. On the added stage there was the fixed scene designed by Scamozzi representing an urban perspective, it was destroyed in the eighteenth century. In two large frescoes on the walls are painted urban scenes of Rome that was the figurative model that inspired the whole Vespasiano’s architectural conception.
Palazzo Giardino (1578-88) is the delightful place where the prince took refuge to read, study and distract himself from the efforts of government. The palace is announced by the Column of Pallas Athena with an ancient statue of Hadrian age but it is as spare outside as it is rich inside. The rooms at the first floor host the vast literary culture of Vespasiano, supported by rich decorative works by Bernardino Campi from Cremona and his collaborators. Frescoes depict the fantasy world of the declining Renaissance: mannerist stuccoes and frescoes in the room called Camera dei Miti, the fine grotesques by Fornarino that adorn the walls of Camerino delle Grazie, Flemish landscapes and rural scenes by Campi in the Sala degli Specchi.
From this room starts the Galleria degli Antichi (1584-86), 96 meters long, designed to contain the collection of ancient marbles of the Duke that is now hosted in in Mantua at Palazzo Ducale.
Going on Via Vespasiano Gonzaga, on the left is Palazzo Forti, owned by a wealthy Jewish family until the first half of the twentieth century, and on the right is the Church of the Carmine (1683) rebuilt on the existing sixteenth-century structure. Going out the city from Porta Imperiale (1579) with its front covered with white marble, just outside Sabbioneta are the remains of the fortress and the circle of walls that form an irregular star and that can be seen following the external walkway which highlights six bastions. Below a typical pasta of the area .Ingredienti
- 320 gr di pasta corta
- 200 gr di polpa di zucca
- 1 cucchiaio di carota grattugiata
- 1 scalogno
- 100 gr di pomodorini
- 60 gr di pancetta a dadini
- 30 gr di pecorino di Pienza
- rosmarino
- olio extravergine d'oliva
- sale e pepe
La zucca è la vera protagonista di questo primo piatto, cotta in un fondo di scalogno, carota e rosmarino, poi trasformata in crema e utilizzata per condire la pasta con spicchietti di pomodorini, poca pancetta croccante e scagliette di pecorino di Pienza.ProcedimentoStufare la carota e lo scalogno tritato in poco olio e sale, poi unire la zucca tagliata a dadini molto piccoli, far rosolare dolcemente per circa 2 minuti, poi unire un cucchiaino di aghi di rosmarino tritati, coprire con un bicchiere di acqua bollente e lasciare sobbollire finche la zucca non risulti molto morbida.Nel frattempo portare ad ebollizione l’acqua, salarla, calare la pasta e cuocerla al dente.Tostare i dadini di pancetta in una padella per renderli croccanti. Tenere da parte.Tagliare in quarti i pomodorini.Frullare con il minipimer la salsa di zucca, unendo un cucchiaio d’olio, fino ad ottenere una salsa liscia. Regolare di sapore con sale e pepe.Condire la pasta con la salsa, unire i pomodorini e la pancetta, mescolare e servire nei piatti.Completare con il pecorino, gocce d’olio e un rametto di rosmarino.
http://www.tripadvisor.it/Restaurants-g1540803-Sabbioneta_Province_of_Mantua_Lombardy.html
Thanks for publishing this.
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