Mantua

The Gonzaga seized power on 16 August 1328, when Luigi Gonzaga, backed by the della Scala of Verona, overthrew the last lord of the Bonacolsi family, and they held Mantua for nearly four centuries. They bought their rise in rank: in 1433 Emperor Sigismund made Gianfrancesco Gonzaga a marquis for 120,000 florins. His son Ludovico brought Andrea Mantegna to Mantua as court painter, and Isabella d'Este, who married Francesco II in 1490, gathered paintings by Mantegna, Perugino and Correggio in her private study.

In 1530 Charles V made Federico II the first duke of Mantua, and Giulio Romano built for him the pleasure palace of the Te. In 1607 Vincenzo I's court musician Claudio Monteverdi premiered his opera L'Orfeo here. Then the direct line died out in 1627, and in the war over the succession an imperial army of mercenaries besieged Mantua in 1630, sacked it and left plague behind. A French branch of the Gonzaga went on ruling the ruined duchy until 1707, when the Habsburgs took it.