The name of Ceresara has two very different explanations: the Latin cerasus, that is the cherry tree, and so the place of cherry orchards; or Cereris ara, the altar of Ceres, for a temple said to have stood here. The first hypothesis the village has taken seriously: the Ceresara cherry has a municipal denomination of origin and in June the festival of the cherry is held. Of the second only conjecture remains, although a votive stone dedicated to Mercury has turned up in the area.
The civic tower, symbol of the village, dates from about 1375 and led into the Gonzaga castle, built not far from an older one that Pinamonte Bonacolsi had destroyed in 1274 and of which only the place name Castelvetro survives. On the night between the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of April 1945, at Corte Podinare, one of the very last clashes of the Italian campaign was fought: about 250 German soldiers had barricaded themselves there with anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank pieces, American artillery shelled for a whole afternoon and the farmstead was destroyed. Two thousand seven hundred and twelve inhabitants in the province of Mantua.
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📅 Every year, on 3 February
Ceresara celebrates Saint Blaise on 3 February. Around 25 March comes the Fiera della Possenta, the main event of the year, heir to an old Annunciation-day fair.
White and yellow flour, almonds, butter and sugar, broken by hand: sbrisolona is Mantova's cake, already served at the Gonzaga court.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Ceresara, but an easy day trip away.
