Civic Tower of Marmirolo

The Civic Tower of Marmirolo is what remains of the 12th century Gonzaga castle.

Civic Tower of Marmirolo that we can see today was restored in 1872-1873, the old tower that was on the wall of the castle collapsed in 1700. This tower had a clock that had been installed in the second half of the fifteenth century. The people of Marmirolo immediately got busy to build a new tower that could also contain the bell so that it could be used to mark the hours and to call the faithful to mass. Originally there was a castle, built in the twelfth century in the center of the current town and surrounded by a moat; at the beginning of the XIII century it became property of the Corradi Gonzaga who made it their residence but, when Ludovico I Gonzaga came to power in Mantua in 1328, the castle of Marmirolo remained for a long time disused. Only in 1440 the Marquis Gianfrancesco Gonzaga decided to reuse the castle and later his descendants, Federico I and Francesco II, called famous painters to embellish the rooms, including Lorenzo Leonbruno, Francesco Bonsignori and Giulio Romano between 1536 and 1539. In the seventeenth century the conditions of the buildings were precarious and in 1630 the Lanzichenecchi, with the “Sacco di Mantova”, inflicted other damages. In 1750 the Austrians demolished the first and second palaces, only what is now the civic tower of Marmirolo survived.