History of Castel Goffredo
In the early medieval period the history of the city was closely linked to the control of the powerful families of the Visconti, Della Scala and the Republic of Venice.
[20] The poet Matteo Bandello (1554), in his work Canti XI,[21] composed in Castel Goffredo while he was a guest of the Marquis Aloisio Gonzaga, already referred to a person named Gioffredo: "...
[26] Recent studies (2010) would trace the name Vifredi back to a phonetic and graphic adaptation prevalent in the Middle Ages, which would have transformed Vifredus into Guifredus and then into Guffredus.
[45] Some votive altars[46][note 4] and a tombstone found in Castel Goffredo and preserved at the Brescia Civic Museum also suggest a settlement in the Roman period (1st century A.D.).
[47] Prominent among the finds is the so-called "funerary stele of Publius Magius Manius" found in Casalpoglio, one of the most remarkable archaeological testimonies ever discovered in western Mantua.
[50][51][52][53] From this period is the discovery in 1989, next to the Oratory of St. Michael the Archangel, of traces of a Roman necropolis, with pieces of pottery, bronze, mosaic tiles and coins.
[61] Upon the fall of the Lombards, around the year 800, Castel Goffredo became part of the district of Sirmione, which stretched between Chiese and Mincio, and until 1115 belonged to the county of Brescia.
The lineage reached the height of its prestige on August 16, 1328, with the capture of Mantua, when Ludovico I Gonzaga, backed by Cangrande I della Scala, seized power by mortally wounding the last of the Bonacolsi, Rinaldo, also known as Passerino.
[74][75] Then, on September 20, 1337, the population preferred to place itself under the protection of Luigi I Gonzaga,[76] first captain of the people of Mantua, by public deed of the notary Giacomino Gandolfi.
In his will, he bequeathed the lordship of many Mantuan hamlets to his third son, Marquis Alessandro, a disciple of Vittorino da Feltre,[note 8] and of Castel Goffredo as an imperial fief[82][83] autonomous from Mantua.
[92] Upon Ludovico's death in 1511, after a long dispute at the imperial court, the state of Castel Goffredo, Castiglione and Solferino passed to his nephew Marquis Aloisio (or Luigi Alessandro).
[7] He made his palace the seat of a sumptuous court,[96] which hosted illustrious figures, including imperial captain Louis Gonzaga "Rodomonte,"[97] the poet Pietro Aretino in 1536,[98] from 1538 to 1541 the writer Matteo Bandello[99][100] (protected by Isabella d'Este,[101] where he met Lucrezia Gonzaga[102] of Gazzuolo, who became his muse and with whom he fell in love),[98][note 9] condottiero Cesare Fregoso, Costanza Rangoni[note 10] and their children,[103] Paolo Battista Fregoso, a military relative of Cesare,[104] ambassador Antonio Rincon[105] and chiromancy scholar Friar Patrizio Tricasso da Ceresara.
[122] That year also saw the establishment in Castel Goffredo, as in other localities of the Mantua area,[note 11] of the Mount of Piety,[123] which complemented the activity of the Jews, but on more advantageous terms and operated until 1799.
[126] He was killed on January 3, 1593, with an arquebus shot by Michele Volpetti[127] during a popular conspiracy supported by the "Magnificent Community" of Castel Goffredo, while he was on his way to religious services in the provostal church of Sant'Erasmo accompanied by his wife Elena and daughter Cinzia.
The events surrounding the double murder of Marquises Alfonso and Rodolfo Gonzaga were dealt with by Rudolf Coraduz von und zu Nußdorf, in his capacity as imperial commissioner.
In 1602 Lawrence of Brindisi was commissioned by the emperor to act as ambassador to the Duke of Mantua Vincenzo I Gonzaga to return the fief to the Marquis of Castiglione.
On June 20, 1602, in the presence of the governor of Milan Pedro Henriquez de Acevedo and that of the bishop of Cremona Cesare Speciano, an agreement was signed between the duke of Mantua Vincenzo I and his cousin Francesco Gonzaga, marquis of Castiglione, for the cession of the fortress of Castel Goffredo in favor of Mantua against the exchange of the lands of Medole in favor of Francesco Gonzaga.
[137] Upon the descent of the imperials from Germany, the fortress of Castel Goffredo was momentarily recaptured by the Venetians, between 1629 and 1630,[138] the year in which it was struck by the plague, which decimated two-thirds of its population, from 2,450 to 1,630 inhabitants.
[144] At the end of the eighteenth century, Colonel Giacomo Acerbi began to breed silkworms and, with the approval of the Austrian government, opened a silk mill next to his palace.
During the uprisings of 1848 Castel Goffredo was the anti-Austrian conspiratorial center of Upper Mantua linked to the Belfiore martyrs and counted the presence of numerous patriots, headed by Giovanni Acerbi, who later became intendant of Garibaldi's Thousand.
In the days before the Battle of Goito (May 30, 1848), Bartolomeo Riva's distinguished guest at Castel Goffredo was the Duke of Savoy Victor Emmanuel, future king of Italy.
[152][153] In the same year, aversion to the Austrian regime led to the establishment in Castel Goffredo of an underground group of Mazzinians,[154] including Giovanni Acerbi and Omero Zanucchi, who was arrested along with twelve other townspeople.
The episode also had an important witness, the war envoy Charles Poplimont,[162] who, during his stay, visited Castel Goffredo and was able to inquire directly about the history and the work there, and sent his newspaper a concise report.
[164] Following the reorganization of the Italian provinces, in 1859 Castel Goffredo was included in the district of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Mandamento III of Asola,[165] and a Carabinieri barracks was established there in December.
[166] In the 1860s, a distinguished citizen of Castel Goffredo, Giovanni Acerbi, participated alongside Garibaldi in the First Expedition of the Thousand with the rank of Intendant General.
[168] The city became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and lost in time the connotations of fortress-city, following the demolitions initiated in the eighteenth century, although it still retained intact three access gates and six towers.
[177] On September 19, 1926, the Catholic teacher Anselmo Cessi was assassinated by the Fascists,[178] and on the occasion of the Great Jubilee, John Paul II included him among the "martyrs of our time.
[180] Between 1930 and 1933, Castel Goffredo benefited from the Medole-Casaloldo tramway, the purpose of which was to connect Desenzano and Lake Garda directly to Brescia, Mantua, Cremona and Piacenza: the line would allow the town to come out of its isolation.
[181] After September 8, 1943, the Brigate Fiamme Verdi, partisan formations inspired by Don Primo Mazzolari, parish priest of Bozzolo,[182] and dedicated, among other things, to opposing the Fascists, began to spread in some towns of the western Mantua area, including Castel Goffredo.
