Mantua, Virginia, sprouted outside Washington, DC, after World War II because of its convenient location between the Little River Turnpike and US Route 50, roads that made commuting into the nation's capital easy. But Mantua's roots go back to a 1685 Northern Neck of Virginia land grant. Gristmills operated along the Accotink Creek, which still defines the terrain. Civil War major John Henry Chichester's family named Mantua, which stretched south to Glenbrook Road farms, under three miles from the Fairfax Court House, where the first Confederate soldier was killed. The area gradually changed from farms where grain grew and livestock grazed to a wooded suburb with Mid-Century Modern houses. Federal workers and military personnel put down roots, establishing a community. An underground oil spill in 1990 united residents determined to overcome unwanted national attention and continue a small-town America lifestyle in the shadow of the nation's capital.

"Although most of Mantua's artistic treasures were sold or claimed as war spoils upon the decline of the Gonzaga family, the rich cultural legacy of this fascinating city lives on in the city's many surviving frescoes and in the collections of some of the world's premier museums These priceless works of art are reunited in the pages of this beautifully illustrated volume."--BOOK JACKET.

Thanks to extensive archival research and a thorough examination of the published works of the university's professors, Grendler's history tells a new story.

In Music at the Gonzaga Court in Mantua, Donald C. Sanders examines the history of musical composition and performance at the northern Italian court of Mantua from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth century. Music is discussed in the context of the visual art, poetry, and theater that graced the court and of the Gonzaga family's interaction with the major European historical figures of the era.

Case studies of private art collections recorded during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Mantua. This work seeks to show how the collectors' taste changed during this period and how these changes are reflected in the collections' display, and also seeks to contribute to the understanding of the original context of works of art in sixteenth and early seventeenth century private houses in a courtly city.

Judah ben Joseph Moscato (c.1533–1590) was one of the most distinguished rabbis, authors, and preachers of the Italian-Jewish Renaissance. This volume is a record of the proceedings of an international conference organized in Mantua and consists of contributions on Moscato and his intellectual world.