Patron saint festival In 319 days
Feast of Santa Sabina
📅 Every year, on the last Sunday of August
On the last Sunday of August Mariana Mantovana, a municipality of 729 inhabitants in the province of Mantua, celebrates its patroness Santa Sabina.
Legend has it that the name comes from Gaius Marius, in honour of his victory over the Cimbri won between Verona and Mantua; no trace of Marius has been found, but this territory is probably among those distributed to legionaries in the centuriation of the Mantuan plain, in the first century before the common era. The first mention is of 1111. For centuries the village followed Brescia, to whose contado it belonged and to whose diocese the parish answered, and it was a fief of the Ugoni-Longhi and then of the Dal Verme. Then came the break: in 1427 Asola drove out the Gonzaga militias and gave itself of its own accord to Venice, and the long boundary quarrel between Venice and Mantua was put to the arbitration of Francesco Sforza, who cut the territory of Mariana in two — the rocca with part of the land stayed with the Gonzaga, the rest went to Venice and was joined to Asola. It is from then that Mantovana was added to the name, to tell this half from the other; the official denomination, though, came only in 1929.
Of the rocca there remain the tower — later given a clock — and the entrance with a stretch of wall: under the arch is a slab with a rampant lion, the date MCCCCLXVI and a name, recalling a captain of the castle who, having taken off his armour, settled in the village. That 1466 is linked to the works by which the Gonzaga had the rocca adapted to withstand bombard fire; inside the walls lived the commander, the soldiers and the horses, while the people lived outside and came in only in case of danger. Trade, however, counted for more: at the end of the fifteenth century some Jews opened there a bank for lending and currency exchange, and from 1505 the community could afford a schoolmaster for its children, on the model of Vittorino da Feltre's Casa Giocosa. At the end of the sixteenth century they asked the duke for leave to fill in the moats of the rocca and plant mulberries there for silk. After the war of 1630, with the occupation and the plague, no more requests for the confirmation of privileges are found in the archives.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Mariana Mantovana 1
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🍝 The flavours of Mariana Mantovana
Sbrisolona crumbly almond and cornmeal cake, broken by hand
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.
Near Mariana Mantovana
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Mariana Mantovana, but an easy day trip away.
Castellana Caves 📍 Castellana Grotte · 1.8 km A 3,348-meter karst cave system mapped in 1938, noted for its 60-meter-deep skylight and dazzling white formations. Santuario di Maria Santissima Regina del Mondo 📍 Monopoli · 6.4 km The sanctuary in the Antonelli district of Monopoli, rebuilt as a vow for the town's safety and consecrated in 1950. Rione Monti 📍 Alberobello · 13 km The 1,030 trulli of Alberobello's larger quarter, laid dry-stone to dodge a tax. Trullo Sovrano 📍 Alberobello · 12 km With walls reaching 2.70 metres in thickness, the Trullo Sovrano is the supreme example of dry-stone architecture. Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali 📍 Polignano a Mare · 13 km Puglia's only permanent contemporary art museum, set in a former slaughterhouse overlooking the sea in Polignano. Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate 📍 Fasano · 17 km The Observant friars' church in Fasano, with its dome, onion-spired bell tower and frescoed 1600s cloister.