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Sabbioneta

Sabbioneta

Renaissance ideal city built whole, Teatro all'Antica, hexagram walls, one prince's vision.

Photograph · Sabbioneta

At a glance

Sabbioneta facts that matter

Names, makers, dates, and context before the story opens up.

What it isDistrict
WhereSabbioneta, Lombardy
Known forRenaissance ideal city built whole, Teatro all'Antica, hexagram walls, one prince's vision

The story

What you're looking at

Sabbioneta is a planned Renaissance town created in the second half of the sixteenth century under Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna. Its right-angle street grid, defensive walls, public spaces and monuments articulate an unusually coherent expression of Renaissance ideal-city planning. Sabbioneta is not an isolated World Heritage property: it forms one component of the paired UNESCO World Heritage property Mantua and Sabbioneta, inscribed in 2008.

Verified details

Each statement below is linked to the record or institution that supports it.

Sabbioneta is a planned Renaissance town created in the second half of the sixteenth century under Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna, about 30 kilometres from Mantua.1

UNESCO describes Sabbioneta as a single-period city with a right-angle street grid, conceived as an implementation of Renaissance theories of the ideal city.1

Its defensive walls, grid of streets, public spaces and monuments are central to UNESCO's assessment of Sabbioneta as an outstanding European example of an ideal city.1

Sabbioneta is a component of the UNESCO World Heritage property Mantua and Sabbioneta, inscribed in 2008 under criteria (ii) and (iii). The World Heritage property comprises the paired Renaissance towns, rather than Sabbioneta alone.1

Sources and citations (1)
  1. UNESCO World Heritage CentreMantua and SabbionetaDescription and Outstanding Universal ValueRead source

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Reading

Stories from Lombardy

Long reads from our writers on the ground.

  1. The magazineLake Como Travel Guide