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Advice about visiting the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua (Mantova)

Posted by (Saint Paul, Minnesota) on

When I searched here on the name of Mantegna's frescoed room, it asked if I meant "camera degli SPOTS"

Getting the expensive reserved tickets for a particular entry time is a bit of a pain, but we can live with that. What I'm wondering about is the conflicting reports online (mostly Tripadvisor reviews) about whether you only get 5 minutes in the room or not. If technically, yes, just 5 minutes, are there actually times of day when the rules relax? Or is it just kind of unpredictable and maybe depending on the kindness of the guards or the number of people with tickets waiting to get in?

We will be doing this as a day trip from Verona. This week. To see this room and to eat at a restaurant we like the look of.

Verona, by the way, is way more swamped with tourists than we were expecting, even though we steered well clear of the fictional Juliet's fake balcony.

Posted by
1608 posts

Ah, well, because we have had many, many experiences in Italy for which the stated rules or website schedule or opening/closing times are one thing and the reality is another.

For instance, at the Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, visitors are required to go around the building on a tour with a guide and the tour is extremely rushed with no time to look at anything. The very nice guide saw that we actually wanted to look at things that interested us, so after the speedy tour, she allowed us to stay afterwards and go through the rooms a second time at our own pace. All by ourselves. Such a kindness would not be on the website.

Of course it is foolish to trust Tripadvisor reviews. Doesn't everybody know that? But sometimes you can glean useful bits of information from people who are complaining about some problem or who are helpfully passing on information that they wish they had known before visiting a site. Just like this travel forum, although of course, Rick Steves is far more reliable than Tripadvisor and of course the Italy section is the best! Here, usually, people will answer a question, for which I am always grateful.

When I find out what visiting the Camera degli Sposi is really like tomorrow, I will try to post something helpful here.

Posted by
1608 posts

OK, just in case somebody searches for Camera degli Sposi in the future, I'll report how our visit went.

We decided that since we were going to be in Mantua for the whole day, we would not reserve a time to see the room and it was a lucky thing we didn't because a bus snafu would have made us an hour late for the reserved time we would have picked.

We bought our tickets and there was no mention of any time limit in the room. The woman remarked that there were still tickets left, so presumably the room does not get packed on a Thursday in early September.

There are guards outside of and in the room and a very official permanent sign with a clock on it saying that a visitor has only 5 minutes in the room. It's very clear what the rule is. Many people (including a group of young schoolchildren) came in and went out and most didn't even stay for 5 minutes. We stayed for more than 25 minutes (I timed it) and could have stayed longer if we had wanted to. Both guards absolutely knew we were there that long and just smiled at us.

So, there it is. The rule and the reality. It certainly could have been different during the summer heavy-duty tourist season. Or at a time when a whole bus-load of people visit on a tour. But at least for us, today, the 5-minute rule wasn't enforced at all. Very happy about that! It's a wonderful painting.

Posted by
3124 posts

Thanks, this is a wonderful insight into what we might expect if visiting that location.

I too have had experiences in Italy of different levels of rule enforcement: more stringent, and more lax, as the case may be.

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