The Palazzo Municipale is a white and yellow painted two-storey building in Via Roma, 39 in Mantova. It has some interesting elements in the upper storey like five Coats or Arms (the one of Mantova and four others) and four columns between them that are half inside the walls. Right of the entrance is an information sign in two languages (Italian and English). It says:
Municipality
The 16th century building belonged for many years to Scipione Gonzaga, prince of Bozzolo. In 1819 it was purchased by the Municipality and a series of alterations began. In 1833 architect Giovanni Battista Vergani modified the facade design and council chamber. He added a bronze bust of Virgil by sculptor Giovanni Bellavite, commissioned in 1801 by the french general Miollis, together with seven other busts of "the first among Illustrious Men of Mantua". The plaster busts with bronze patina were created in 1837 by Stefano Gerola of Milan. A new, plaster, portrait of Virgil modelled on the pseudo-Virgil at the Capitoline Museums was later commissioned when Bellavite's bronze bust was moved to the main staircase, where it is still situated.
"Mantova
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the European Capital of Gastronomy, included in the Eastern Lombardy District (together with the cities of Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona).
In 2008, Mantua's centro storico (old town) and Sabbioneta were declared by UNESCO to be a World Heritage Site. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family has made it one of the main artistic, cultural, and especially musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole. Having one of the most splendid courts of Europe of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries. Mantua is noted for its significant role in the history of opera; the city is also known for its architectural treasures and artifacts, elegant palaces, and the medieval and Renaissance cityscape. It is the city where the composer Monteverdi premiered his opera L'Orfeo and to where Romeo was banished in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It is the nearest town to the birthplace of the Roman poet Virgil, who is commemorated by a statue at the lakeside park 'Piazza Virgiliana'.
Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes, created during the 12th century as the city's defence system. These lakes receive water from the Mincio River, a tributary of the Po River which descends from Lake Garda. The three lakes are called Lago Superiore, Lago di Mezzo, and Lago Inferiore ('Upper', 'Middle', and 'Lower' Lakes, respectively). A fourth lake, Lake Pajolo, which once served as a defensive water ring around the city, dried up at the end of the 18th century.
The area and its environs are important not only in naturalistic terms, but also anthropologically and historically; research has highlighted a number of human settlements scattered between Barche di Solferino and Bande di Cavriana, Castellaro and Isolone del Mincio. These dated, without interruption, from Neolithic times (5th–4th millennium BC) to the Bronze Age (2nd–1st millennium BC) and the Gallic phases (2nd–1st centuries BC), and ended with Roman residential settlements, which could be traced to the 3rd century AD.
In 2017, Legambiente ranked Mantua as the best Italian city for the quality of the life and environment."
Source and further information:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantua