Routes of the greedy. From Valeggio on the Mincio to Verona to Mantua
by Fabio Massimo Penna
For lovers of good food we propose a delicious itinerary (also artistic) that I will take us to Valeggio on the Mincio, Verona and Mantua. Let's start at Valeggio.
The great culinary tradition of Valeggio on the Mincio finds one of its highest expressions in the restaurant-hotel "Al Hunter". For many years Luigi and Liliana have been delighting the palate of those lucky enough to stop at the restaurant with their genuine and simple dishes. The specialty that made them famous are the inimitable handmade tortellini from the light puff pastry and tasty filling prepared with scrupulous attention. It is a dish of which over time appetizing variants have been created with new recipes (currently there are eight varieties of tortellini). Anyone who wants to know more can connect to the www.alcacciatore.netsite, email info@alcacciatore.net or call 045 7950500.
Valeggio on the Mincio is a Venetian municipality in the province of Verona crossed by the Mincio River. Valeggio's history probably dates back to the Bronze Age according to the remains of a sttilt village discovered on the Mincio. Etruscan finds have also been found in the area. The actual urban settlement is considered to date from the longobard period. Joined the Cisalpina Republic at the end of the 18th century, Valeggio was later taken part in the Lombardy Veneto Kingdom and then the Kingdom of Italy, Among the places of interest we point out the eighteenth-century church of St. Peter in the Chair, a longitudinal plant with a Latin cross and a single aisle, and the seventeenth-century Villa Sigurtà. Of ancient tradition are the famous tortellini of Valeggio on the Mincio with the stuffed egg pasta that is a typical local product.
I
Verona. For romantics the house of Juliet is a must, for lovers of the opera Verona is the Arena, for gourmets the city is a kind of cornucopia of gluttony. An ideal place to give birth to youthful love according to Shakespeare, Verona is also a treasure chest full of artistic beauties. The Arena is the symbol of the city. It is a Roman amphitheatre whose inner part has various steps and an elliptical central space that was used for gladiator fights and beast fights. The structure is marked by three concentric belts while the outer part, largely destroyed by an earthquake that demolished the ring with overlapping arches that encompassed the amphitheater, remains only the so-called "wing". The construction is the third Roman amphitheatre among those that have come to us and is built with the classic stone of Valpollicella. The Verona Arena hosts the most important opera season in the world.
Among the personalities who decided the face of the city, Michele Sanmicheli, who in the sixteenth century carried out a remarkable building activity there. For the Verona architect, color values are fundamental. In this sense, he studies
the impact of light on its buildings, assessing how it bathes the various components of the facade, to obtain the most suitable shades and shades. An example of this research is the Verona-born Palazzo Bevilacqua in which the ground floor, with its marked bugnate, and the first floor with the grooved columns, the bas-reliefs, the arches all sixth and the eardrums on the doors, show a fascinating play of light and shadow. Porta Palio (also in the city of Romeo and Juliet) shows, instead, the qualities of military architect of Sanmicheli: great attention to the functionality and practicality of the whole and a majestic and austere monumentality.
The basilica of San Zeno, one of the greatest expressions of Romanesque in Italy, is a building of fundamental importance for the city. The church is dedicated to the saint of African descent considered the author of many miracles. To lighten the facade there is an imposing rosette made by Brioloto called "wheel of fortune". Of extraordinary beauty is the portal with its bronzed tiles with quality bas-reliefs recessed in an elegant protiro with elegant and slender columns resting on two stylish lions. Inside is Andrea Mantegna's masterpiece "The Shovel of San Zeno". In this work, the interaction between painting and sculpture is of great artistic value. The frame of the painting, in fact, enters the painting itself because its gilded wooden columns overlap with the painted pillars that outline the porticoed environment of the table creating a deceptive exchange between art and reality. The game between the physical and the fictional world of painting is enhanced by the correspondence between real and painted light, a concomitant wanted by Mantegna himself that for the purpose required to create a window that illuminated the table from the right. The work shows the typical quotations of the ancient manntegnesche (derived from the apprenticeship at the workshop of Francesco Squarcione, great enthusiast of archaeological finds) and a bold and impeccable perspective system.
The Verona cuisine offers a wide variety of treats. Beef boiled with pearà, risotto with pork, bigoli with sardines and"pastisada de caval"(horsemeat stew) are some attractions for the greedy. You can't fail to remember the typical Verona pandoro, the world-famous Christmas cake.
Mantova. In Mantua two sites impose themselves strongly on the visitor: the room of the newlyweds of Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Te. The 'camera picta' is a compartment frescoed by Andrea Mantegna between 1465 and 1474. The space available is rather cramped and the painter to make it receptive as wider employs some optical gimmicks that bend the perspective for illusionistic purposes: authentic architecture and painted parts coexist to create an airy and majestic structure. In advance of so much later painting Mantegna "breaks" the ceiling by painting in trompe-l'oeil an opening that shows a blue and cloudy sky framed by a parapet from which various characters face and protruding some cleverly glimpsed putti. Also remarkable is on the north wall the representation of the court of gonzaga seen through fake drapes cracked. Despite the spectacularness of this masterpiece it seems that in his time the artist's fame was linked to the "Triumphs of Caesar" of Hampton Court cycle of nine canvases on the theme of the ancient. There is never a lack of, moreover, in the work of Mantegna an erudite aspect: the painter of Isola Carturo had in fact deep antiquarian interests. The antique stylistic figure that pervades Mantegna's painting shows how his artistic idiom needs a erudite audience. The fresco with "St. James led to martyrdom" of the Ovetari Chapel in Padua is dominated by an imposing Roman triumphal arch that refers to the arch of the Gavi of Verona (monument destroyed in the nineteenth century and rebuilt in 1932). In "The Oration in the Garden" of the National Gallery in London, a monument inspired by the Colosseum and a Roman honorary column can be seen in the background. What the artist gives to the viewer is his own interpretation of the ancient in fact "if Mantegna still interests us as an illustrator it is due to the fact that he lacked his own purpose; and instead of giving an archaeologically correct transcription of ancient Rome, he gave the creation of his own romantic temperament: the Rome of his dreams, his vision of a noble humanity, which lives nobly in the noblest environment" (Bernard Berenson, The Italian Painters of the Renaissance,Rcs Books, Milan, 2009).
Palazzo Te is the absolute masterpiece of Raphael's greatest of students, Giulio Romano. Called to Mantua by the Marquis Federico II Gonzaga, the artist of Rome was commissioned to direct the works of the accommodation of the Palazzo Ducale, to deal with urban planning and the princely collections. His most important intervention, however, remains the construction and decoration of Palazzo Te, which owes its name to the place on which the Teieto is built (site where the grass is cut). The building is a suburban pleasure villa, low-looking and compact, on a single floor that fits perfectly into the flat ground. The facades (they had to be four but one was not made) are all different of classic taste but with bold 'manieriste licenses'. The interior decoration has its climax in the spectacular room with the "Fall of the Giants" parietal fresco that illusionically simulates the collapse of the palace involving the visitor in the painted landslide. Another important moment of Giulio Romano's career are his interventions in Raphael's rooms in the Vatican.
Rich and inviting is the Mantuan cuisine, First you should remember the amazing tortelli of butter and sage pumpkin,tasty legacy of an important popular and ancient culinary tradition. Other traditional dishes are capunsei,elongated and cylindrical bread dumplings and the sbrisolona,sweet characterized by its high friability.