Province of Mantua

Province of Mantua
Province
Palazzo della Cervetta in Mantua, the provincial seat.
Map highlighting the location of the province of Mantua in Italy
Country	Italy
Region	Lombardy
Capital(s)	Mantua
Comuni	70
Government
• President	Alessandro Pastacci (PD)
Area
• Total	2,339 km2 (903 sq mi)
Population (31 May 2015)
• Total	413,663
• Density	180/km2 (460/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Vehicle registration	MN
ISTAT	020

The Province of Mantua (Italian: Provincia di Mantova) is a province in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Its capital is the city of Mantua. It is bordered to the north-east by the Province of Verona, to the east by that of Rovigo, to the south by those of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Parma, to the west by the Province of Cremona and to the north-west by that of Brescia.

Founded in the tenth century BC on the plain formed by meanders of the River Mincio, Mantua became an Etruscan town and important trading post for pottery and agricultural products. Despite its defensible position, it was unable to withstand the Celtic invaders in the sixth and fifth centuries BC who overwhelmed it, and the whole area was later conquered by the Romans.

By the fifth century AD, the Western Roman Empire was collapsing. Mantua was overrun by a series of invaders, including the Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths. After 568 the Lombards seized control of the part of northern Italy which is now known as Lombardy and included Mantua.

The current administrative boundaries of the province have deep historical roots, corresponding largely to the Duchy of Mantua, which was a sovereign state under international law. The Napoleonic Department of the Mincio became the Province of Mantua at the birth of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia in 1815. Following the Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859, Franco-Piedmontese troops conquered Lombardy up to the right bank of the Mincio, and the resulting Armistice of Villafranca of 11 June 1859 between France and Austria called for the new provincial boundaries, splitting in two the part of the previous Province of Mantova that was crossed by the new international border. The new provincial boundaries came into effect after laws enacted in 1868. The coat of arms of the province, containing the symbols of Mantua, Bozzolo and Castiglione delle Stiviere, embodies the union of those three areas and was adopted in place of the previous one.