Motteggiana

Until 1867 Motteggiana had no name of its own: it was called "Borgoforte a destra del Po", the part of another village that lay on the far side of the river. The municipality had been created in 1773, when Maria Theresa's reform tidied up the overlapping jurisdictions of the Duchy of Mantua; the present name arrived only after unification, from the Latin monticula, the little rises, and the coat of arms granted in 2000 still says so, with an Italian-style mount surmounted by the black eagle of the Gonzaga. The territory is closed between two waters, the Po and the Zara canal, which follows the old final course of the Oglio: here the rivers have changed their way more than once, and the boundaries with them.

In 1866 the village was the scene of a minor page of the third war of independence. The Austrians had built four forts around Borgoforte to defend the Mantua-Verona line from the south: three on the left bank and one on the right, fort Noyon, at Motteggiana. General Cialdini laid siege to the bridgehead and on 5 July began to shell it; the Austrians held out until the night between 17 and 18 July, then quietly abandoned the damaged fort and withdrew to Mantua, while the war had already moved to the Veneto and Friuli. The central part of the fort can still be seen: in 1873 it served as an access ramp to the embankment for the new Modena-Suzzara-Mantova railway. In the village there also remains the Corte Ghirardina, built in 1470 by Luca Fancelli.