Upper Mantua (Italian: Alto Mantovano/Upper Mantuan dialect: Alt Mantuà) is a geographical area located northwest of the city of Mantua in the province of the same name and bordering the provinces of Brescia and Verona, bordered to the north by the morainic hills of Lake Garda, to the east by the province of Verona, to the northwest by the province of Brescia, and to the south by the plains of Middle Mantua.
The most significant centers are Castiglione delle Stiviere, Castel Goffredo, and Asola, in whose areas the clothing industry was particularly developed, employing about 7,500 people in 2013. The northern part of Mantua is influenced - in its dialectal inflection, traditions, historical events, religious upbringing, even political choices - by its proximity above all to the province of Brescia and, in part, to that of Verona. The area has a typically agricultural economy, although the post-World War II years saw an increase in industrial production and a lively tertiary activity.
Territorial extent and municipalities Upper Mantua is bounded to the west and east by the Chiese and Mincio rivers respectively, to the north by the morainic hills of Lake Garda, while its southern borders are marked by the mid-Mantuan plain crossed by the Via Postumia.
Historically, politically and civilly, most of its component municipalities have become part of the Mantuan territory only since about the 15th century, while others have become part of it since the 19th century. On the religious level, the majority of the parishes of Upper Mantua until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century were included in the diocese of Brescia. From a linguistic point of view, a dialect is spoken in the area that, unlike Mantuan, belongs to the group of Lombard dialects and is markedly similar to Brescian.Vittore Colorni, Il territorio mantovano nel Sacro Romano Impero. Periodo comitale e periodo comunale, Milano, Giuffrè, 1959, d'ora in poi COLORNI 1959, pagg. 53-54; 60-64.
The northwestern area of the province of Mantua, a territory of fifteen to twenty municipalities mostly already belonging mainly to Brescia, but partly also to Verona, has always retained its own historical and political specificity,Vignoli 2011, p. 9 and is therefore historically characterized by centrifugal tendencies in relation to Mantua and the rest of its province.Vignoli-Cobelli 2010, p. 133.
From the official classification of the Province of Mantua, Upper Mantua is an area that groups 14 municipalities: MunicipalityIn Upper Mantuan dialectSurface areaPopulationCasalmoroCasalmòr13 km22 162CasaloldoCasalòlt16,84 km22 678CasalromanoCasarimà11 km21 480Castel Goffredo(èl) Castèl42,24 km212 574Castiglione delle StiviereCastiù42,09 km223 378CavrianaCavriàna36 km23 710CeresaraSareşére37 km22 526GoitoGùit78,82 km210 050GuidizzoloGhidisöl22 km25 919MedoleMédule25 km24 107MonzambanoMosambàn29 km24 934Ponti sul MincioPónti11,50 km22 317SolferinoSulfrì13 km22 664Volta Mantovanala Ólta50,31 km27 218
Other municipalities, otherwise included in the Middle-West Mantua, are often commonly included in the current concept of Upper Mantua. They are: MunicipalityIn Upper Mantuan dialectSurface areaPopulationAcquanegra sul Chiese'Quanégra28 km22 795AsolaÀsula73 km29 996Canneto sull'OglioCané25 km24 245Gazoldo degli IppolitiGasòlt12 km22 947Mariana MantovanaMariàna8 km2794PiubegaPiübega16 km21 692RedondescoRedundèsch19 km21 215
The latter municipalities are all located north of - or at most straddling - the Via Postumia, an ancient Roman road axis that can be taken as an ideal dividing line between Upper Mantua and the rest of Mantua. For the latter classification, which includes more municipalities in Upper Mantua, one can see the news sections in the local newspapers Gazzetta di Mantova and La Voce di Mantova and the Magazine Alto Mantovano column on the television station Telemantova.
The Provincial Territorial Coordination Plan of the Province of Mantua, which identifies elements of homogeneity related to environmental features and a historical reading of the settlement system, and highlights a common matrix in terms of cultural values, also describes Upper Mantua, classified as "Circondario A," consisting of 21 municipalities.Based on the analysis of the structure of the territory and the relations between municipalities - polarity, pendularity, gravitation - 4 districts have been identified throughout the province. The municipalities of Upper Mantua, understood in the most comprehensive way, thus turn out to be 21: Acquanegra sul Chiese, Asola, Canneto sull'Oglio, Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalromano, Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Cavriana, Ceresara, Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Goito, Guidizzolo, Mariana Mantovana, Medole, Monzambano, Piubega, Ponti sul Mincio, Redondesco, Solferino, Volta Mantovana. Cf.
The vast majority of municipalities have a population of between 1,000 and 10,000. Only Castiglione delle Stiviere exceeds 20 000 inhabitants, while three municipalities - Castel Goffredo, Goito and Asola - have a population between 10 000 and 20 000; finally, Mariana Mantovana does not reach 1 000 and is the least populous municipality in the entire province of Mantua.Toffoli, p. 7
Despite such classifications, the definition of the upper Mantuan territory remains quite subjective due to the fact that, despite its uniformity, it remains primarily a geographic-cultural region without real political references, nor has it ever been an autonomous political-religious entity in the past.
The very concept and terminology of Upper Mantua came to be formed rather late in historyAt the time of the Gonzaga, some of the Upper Mantuan lands were designated by the term New Mantua, but they encompassed a much broader reality than today's Upper Mantua, as it referred not only to areas formerly from Brescia, but also from Cremona, still included in the diocese of Cremona. and essentially the relation to the position and role it occupied within the province of Mantua.
From a historical, religious, cultural and linguistic point of view, the lands currently referred to as Upper Mantua gravitated in the past mainly within the sphere of influence of Brescia or Verona. Even after the coming of the influence exerted by Mantua, mainly due to the Gonzaga family, Upper Mantua often configured itself as a periphery sector or appendix within the Mantuan state, even maintaining its own autonomy, in the case of fiefdoms ruled by lineages independent of Mantua.
The criteria taken into consideration to define Upper Mantua can be diverse:
Historic-ecclesiastical: this would refer to and include the territories that remained for much of the common era under the administrative dependencies - not only civil, but also religious - of the cities of Brescia and Verona, instead of Mantua. In such a wide historical span, however, there were many political and civil changes and alternations, which make a definition based only on this criterion tenuous. Simplifying and referring only to much of the medieval and modern periods, the lands corresponding to the municipalities of: Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalromano, Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Guidizzolo, Medole, Solferino, Acquanegra sul Chiese, Asola, Canneto sull'Oglio, Mariana Mantovana, and Redondesco. These territories were included until the 18th-19th centuries in the diocese of Brescia and until the late Middle Ages - but some even beyond - in the district headed by the same city - duchy, county, or medieval commune. In the early Middle Ages some of these towns, those further north, were included in the duchy and episcopate of Verona. Added to these municipalities are Monzambano and Ponti sul Mincio, which since Roman times have always gravitated to the Verona orbit, civilly until the 19th century, and religiously even until the 20th. Geographic: this is the criterion most often followed in studies and publications concerning Upper Mantua, which often tend to restrict this notion to the hilly or foothill sector only, disregarding historical considerations.In , Upper Mantua is divided into two zones of belonging: apart from Goito and Gazoldo, which are included in the Middle Po Valley, also including Mantua, the Plateau between the Mincio and Oglio is composed of 11 municipalities: Acquanegra, Asola, Canneto, Canneto, Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalromano, Castel Goffredo, Ceresara, Mariana Mantovana, Piubega, Redondesco. Upper Mantua in the narrowest sense here includes only the hill and foothill area, with a total of 8 municipalities: Castiglione delle Stiviere, Cavriana, Monzambano, Ponti sul Mincio, Solferino, Volta Mantovana, Medole, and Guidizzolo. Cf. Such also seems to be the approach of the volume: The geographical criterion can refer to altimetrical altitude - thus upper in the sense of elevated -, and in that case it includes only hilly municipalities and at most those immediately on the slopes of the morainic reliefs: Castiglione delle Stiviere, Guidizzolo, Medole, Solferino, Monzambano, Ponti sul Mincio, Cavriana, Volta Mantovana; alternatively, upper can be considered in the sense of situated north of the rest of the province of Mantua. Even in the latter case, however, since the morainic hills are located in the very northernmost belt of the province, it is essentially the same municipalities just listed that are involved, at most with some greater extension toward the plain, affecting in particular Castel Goffredo, Goito, Ceresara, Casaloldo, Casalmoro, and Casalromano, as in the classification of the province of Mantua. Linguistic: finally, one can consider the territories in which variants of the Brescian dialect - the so-called Upper Mantuan dialects, or, marginally, of the Veronese dialect - are spoken, as opposed to the Mantuan dialect spoken in the capital and its surrounding area and various transitional dialects that can be placed practically halfway between Brescian and Mantuan. According to this criterion, one would have Upper Mantua composed of: Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalromano, Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Guidizzolo, Medole, Solferino, Acquanegra sul Chiese, Asola, Canneto sull'Oglio, Mariana Mantovana, Ceresara, Cavriana, Volta Mantovana, Ponti sul Mincio, Monzambano, and Piubega. Excluded would be Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Goito, and Redondesco, where the dialect is transitional between Brescia and Mantua and is now close to the latter.
Territory and environment
The territory can be roughly divided, with regard first of all to elevation and landform, into two large areas, one hilly to the north and the other of lowland to the southwest, to which correspond different environmental and vegetative characteristics.
Moraine hills and sub-hill area (gravelly high plain): Castiglione delle Stiviere, Cavriana, Guidizzolo, Medole, Monzambano, Ponti sul Mincio, Solferino, Volta Mantovana.Lombardia, p. 494 Flat plateau between Mincio and Oglio: Acquanegra sul Chiese, Asola, Canneto sull'Oglio, Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalromano, Castel Goffredo, Ceresara, Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Goito, Mariana Mantovana, Piubega, Redondesco.Toffoli, pp. 7-8
This flat area of upper and middle plain is traversed by the Mincio, Oglio, and Chiese rivers and shorter watercourses such as the Tartari, Osone, Solfero, and Caldone; it is characterized by fine-grained fluvial sediments - sands, silts, clays - slightly sloping toward the axial part of the Po River course.
In turn, the landscape of the lowland plateau is divided into: medium hydromorphic plain or historical karst springs; low plain and river valley landscapes, with the Chiese valley, Oglio valley and Mincio valley.