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Article: GONZAGA: THE DESPOTS OF MANTUA
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- March 29, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1988 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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A RENAISSANCE TAPESTRY. The Gonzaga of Mantua, by Kate
Simon. Harper & Row, 309 pp., $22.50
In Cole Porter's Italy, Mantua comes between Parma and Padua.
Kate Simon's excellent popular history, however, properly locates
the city -- dismissed by Cook's Guide of 1923 as "of no interest
except for art and history" -- nearer the hub of European culture.
Ruled by the princely house of Gonzaga between the 14th and
18th centuries, Mantua radiated learning and power. Vittorino da
Feltre founded there the first and one of the most enlightened
schools of humanism. The master architect Leon Battista Alberti
built two imposing, though incomplete churches, San Sebastiano,
constructed on the ...