Nearby Bronze and Iron Age sites have been identified at "Beccazzola" in the comune in Poggio Rusco and the località "Dosso" of San Benedetto Po', showing the area of lower Mantua to have been inhabited from ancient times by people associated with the archeological culture of Villanova.

Finally Roman-era coins dating to the reign of Augustus, Hadrian and Constantine were recovered by private individuals at Corte Fosse Scura, where archeological survey also identified marble remains, likely connected with a large homestead.

Five years later the comune of Reggio during another war against Mantua tried again to conquer Gonzaga but the arrival of a detachment of Modenese allies and their capture of the castle of Bondeno thwarted the campaign.

During the Nineteenth Century Gonzaga was at the heart of a widespread agrarian strike known as "Le Boje", inspired by the Mantuan radical and former red-shirt Francesco Siliprandi, one of Italy's first labor organizers and the founder of Mantua's first trade union, the Associazione Generale dei Lavoratori.

[7] Troops eventually arrived and arrested 18 strikers, including 4 members of the local committee and Alcibiade Moneta, editor of the new socialist periodical "La Favilla" and a candidate at the political elections of the 28th of October (all arrestees were sentenced to jail-time).

The strike that started in Gonzaga however spread to nearby municipalities in Bondeno, Ostiglia, Quistello, Revere, Bagnolo, Borgoforte, Sustinente and Serravalle a Po': the key demand was that no labor would be done for less than two and a half lira's day-wage, and tension lasted for weeks.

Activists and striking workers were arrested across the lower Mantuan area, and in nearby provinces in Modena, Reggio, Cremona and Rovigo, leading the Bishop of Mantua and MPs to despair the arrival of the new "Red Gospel" in the Lombard countryside.

During the Second World War local partigiani operating in the Po Valley fought an all-out battle against occupying German forces and their collaborationist allies from the Italian Social Republic on the night between 19 and 20 December 1944.