Upper Mantua is bounded to the west and east by the Chiese and Mincio rivers respectively, to the north by the morainic hills of Lake Garda, while its southern borders are marked by the mid-Mantuan plain crossed by the Via Postumia.

From a historical, religious, cultural and linguistic point of view, the lands currently referred to as Upper Mantua gravitated in the past mainly within the sphere of influence of Brescia or Verona.

[26] In the context of a territory in which the Cenoman Gauls were settled, the Romanization of Upper Mantua is evidenced by numerous archaeological remains of buildings, villas, necropolis, infrastructure and the vestiges of centuriation, all of which document the daily life of a provincial area in imperial times.

The exact affiliation of the area is debated, so much so that in the official collection of Latin inscriptions epigraphs from the territory were given a separate section, disjointed from each of the major surrounding cities: the Ager inter Benacum, Mincium, Ollium, Clesum, largely coinciding with the present limits of Upper Mantua.

For much of the Lombard and Frankish ages Upper Mantua was accorded a degree of independence: much of it was included in a minor district practically autonomous from neighboring duchies, centered on Lake Garda and reporting to the Benacense town of Sirmione.

[30] With the decline of this administrative structure, a number of noble families appeared in the western area of Upper Mantua, endowed with the title of count and designated by the common name of Ugoni-Longhi, who for a good part of the Middle Ages maintained practically autonomous rural lordships in the territory, before the neighboring city municipalities, primarily that of Brescia, incorporated them into their domain.

[32] A good part of the lands now in Mantua were incorporated as a result of the expansionist drive promoted by the Gonzaga especially during the 14th-15th centuries - Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Solferino, Guidizzolo, Medole, Redondesco, Mariana Mantovana, Acquanegra sul Chiese, Canneto sull'Oglio, Casalromano[33] -, at the expense of the Brescian district: it was what was then called "Mantovano Nuovo".

[35] After ousting the Viscontis (March 1426), Brescia made an act of dedication to the Republic of Venice, but by that time many towns in the Upper Mantuan area were subject to the rule of Mantua.

[37] Only the so-called "Asolano," including Asola, Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Casalpoglio, and the Veronese municipalities of Monzambano and Ponti sul Mincio, remained among the Domini di Terraferma of the Serenissima.

[42] This situation can be found in the same period in many other parts of Italy, but in this case the sense of living on the "border" continued in later eras with the dominations of the Visconti, the Gonzaga and the Most Serene Republic of Venice (Battle of Casaloldo, May 1509).

[49] Politically, between 1797 and 1814 the area, after finally assuming the unitary configuration under the dependencies of Mantua that is still present today, was subject to French rule in the Napoleonic Empire, and then became part of the Habsburg Lombardy-Venetia Kingdom.

On September 19, 1926 in Castel Goffredo the Catholic teacher Anselmo Cessi was assassinated by the Fascists,[51] who was counted by John Paul II, on the occasion of the Great Jubilee, among the "martyrs of our time".

[52] In the political elections that followed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Upper Mantua distinguished itself from the rest of the province, where socialist positions were recorded, by a more right-wing orientation: Christian Democracy in the area often managed to maintain good results.

[60] The rise of the industrial-type society in the century just past favored in the Upper Mantuan the development of a pragmatic and concrete mentality that proved to be, at the same time, increasingly secular.

It weakened, bringing it almost to the point of disappearance, the religious conception of the world, handed down by countless generations until the early twentieth century, for which every period of the year and every hour of the day were regulated and sanctified by cult practices.

[64][65] In diplomas issued by kings of Italy or emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from the 11th century onward to the Church of Mantua, it is found that only a few centers of the Upper Mantua area were the seat of parishes belonging to the Mantuan diocese: these are in particular Cavriana, San Cassiano di Cavriana, Volta Mantovana, Goito, San Martino Gusnago, and a place now disappeared called "Capo di Tartaro," located at the time probably between Mosio, Redondesco and Marcaria, i.e., near the border with the Brescian area.

In ecclesiastically Brescian Upper Mantua the Disciplines were present in Asola, Castiglione, Solferino, Medole, Castel Goffredo, Casalmoro, Casaloldo, Acquanegra, Redondesco, Mariana, and Canneto.

Involved are the municipalities of: Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Cavriana, Goito, Guidizzolo, Medole, Monzambano, Ponti sul Mincio, Solferino, Volta Mantovana.

The municipal administrations, with the support of the Province of Mantua, through the definition of the Memorandum of Understanding "Between the Eagle and the Lion lands of frontier and communication," activated the construction of a strategic plan for the area.

[98] Both linguistically and religiously, politically, architecturally and in terms of settlement, Upper Mantua is characterized by common features that distinguish it from the rest of the province: it is a very unified region in its historical vocations as in its current choices.

[99] The Bronze Age pile-dwelling stations of Castellaro Lagusello and Bande di Cavriana were inscribed in the year 2011 in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites among the ancient alpine settlements.

However, the part of the territory that stretches between the southern shores of Lake Garda and the Mantuan plain, enclosed to the east by the Mincio River and to the west by the Chiese, an evocative habitat with outstanding natural and scenic features, also became, in the same years, a kind of rediscovered Arcadia, the object of soothing painting.

[114] The municipalities of Castiglione delle Stiviere, Medole, Cavriana, Solferino and Ponti sul Mincio have initiated a draft convention for the joint management of what has been called the Archival Service of Upper Mantua.

This particular situation precisely favored in Upper Mantua the formation of small urban centers, almost mini-capitals of rural substratum, although endowed, in the late Renaissance, with significant urban-architectural interventions: Castel Goffredo, Castiglione,[119] Solferino.

[121] As far as rural architecture is concerned, there are two prevailing typologies, according to a dichotomy between hilly and flat areas that also affects other aspects of the Alto Mantovano: the "contrade" of the moraine hills and the closed courtyards of the high plain, mostly characterized by medium-sized farms with a land structure not exceeding 30 ha.

[122] The small rural farms of the hills, built with river pebbles and open to the countryside, were replaced by the large estates of the vast and fertile plain, gathered around the farmyard and enclosed by walls and brick buildings, functional building patterns intended in the past to meet various needs: a large manor house in the center to house the eventual owner or administrator; rural dwellings for the families of workers; rooms set up for the storage of cold cuts, wine, cheese; stables and barns in which to store work tools, stow hay, grain, and guard livestock.

[124] From an urban point of view, the hill towns in the territory on the border between Mantua, Brescia, and Verona were mostly medieval villages that experienced the rule of the Seignories and have, subsequently, adapted to the economic development of more recent eras.

Overshadowed by a castle or its remains, rising from the top of the highest hill around which the town proper grew, they are embellished with stately villas and residences built in the refined Renaissance style that replaced fortifications and buttresses when the defensive functions of those ancient military posts disappeared.

[125] Gonzaga's Castel Goffredo, as well as the Venetian Asola, represent lowland localities characterized by building affinities, once enclosed by bastioned walls, with a large square inside where the main church, the prince's or town hall's palace, straight streets, and long porticoes are located.

[126] The perimeter fortifications of Asola and Castel Goffredo, important and irreplaceable testimonies of urban and military history, were erased by constant and definitive works of decommissioning and dismantling that lasted at least until the early twentieth century.