Bagnolo San Vito

Bagnolo San Vito is a municipality of 5,874 people in the province of Mantua, in Lombardy, squeezed between the Po and the Mincio, in a landscape of high embankments, floodplains and irrigation canals. The territory brings together six settlements: for a long time the largest was San Nicolò Po, but in the twentieth century the centre of gravity shifted to the main town and to the hamlet of San Biagio, along the old Romana state road and near the Mantova Sud toll station on the Brenner motorway. The name may derive from the Latin balneum, meaning marsh, and from San Vito.

The municipal coat of arms is gold, with a wavy silver-and-blue base crossed by a fede — two clasped hands. Since 1981, excavations at the Forcello Archaeological Park, near San Biagio, have brought to light the remains of an Etruscan settlement. Villa Riva Berni hosted, between 1995 and 1999, the first Parlamento del Nord promoted by Umberto Bossi, while the hamlet of San Nicolò Po was the birthplace of cyclist Learco Guerra.