Virgil's House Pietole

"Pietole... is a hamlet of Borgo Virgilio. Here is the ancient fort of Pietole, which was previously called Andes and was the birthplace of the poet Virgil. He was a landowner here and also had his family. This is a small village with a small Romanesque parish church and a few houses. When the village was invaded by Napoleon's troops, everything was razed to the ground. They did this in order to build the fort, but soon after, the entire fort came under Austrian rule and then to the Italian state, which used it to make a large weapons depot. This depot was then transferred in 2014 to the municipality of Borgo Virgilio. Returning to Pietole, I can tell you that here we find a beautiful park, which has been here since the 13th century, with a 33-hectare long lowland forest. Which borders a community site, that of Vallazza, where there is also a museum from the time of Augustus with inside it two millennia to be discovered by looking at all the works well preserved here."

Gaetano Cavaleri

"A charming place. The multimedia installations are interesting. I really enjoyed the virtual reality experience of the fort. I thank the man who accompanied us on the tour and provided us with further details.
It was absolutely calm; there were only three of us.
I suggest installing a dehumidification system in the second casemate we visited. The condensation here is so strong that it even prevents us from seeing the coins kept in the display case, and the original of one document on display is soaked in water, seriously threatening its preservation."

Cesare Sivelli

"Historical notes:
The construction of the imposing Pietole fort, now surrounded
by the vegetation of the banks of the Mincio, was part of the general plan for the strengthening of the fortress of Mantua, developed in the early 19th century by French General François de Chasseloup-Laubat. It was laid out along an asymmetrical crown, consisting of a central parade ground separated from numerous external structures by a moat. For its construction, the chamber engineer Pietro Cremonesi was entrusted with the initial local technical tasks, and despite the immediate start of construction and the employment of numerous workers, the fort was still not finished in 1813.
The work was resumed by the Austrians after the Congress of Vienna: in 1835, the walled vaults of the countermine tunnels were completed and the massive embankment walls of the bastions were built; From 1840 to 1845, the casemates were built on the sides of the bastions, and in 1845, the two exit gates with drawbridges on the curtain walls were completed. Finally, between 1862 and 1863, the large powder magazine located behind the central bastion was built. The great fire that broke out between April 28th and May 1st led to the explosion and subsequent destruction of the large Austrian powder magazine, which contained 28,000 kilograms of black powder. The fire caused enormous damage to the fort's structure: Bastions I, II, and III suffered serious damage, and the vault of the covered road collapsed in several places. The entire fort was definitively decommissioned in 1983. Currently...
the site appears abandoned and overgrown. It is very large, and silence reigns supreme. Immersion in the scents and sounds of nature makes it interesting to explore. Many long tunnels can be found there."

Francesco