Ponti sul Mincio

Ponti sul Mincio, formerly referred to always and simply as Ponte (Pons), appears for the first time on documents in 1145 in a list of the plebane churches of the diocese of Verona.
In reality, the territory was inhabited by populations already in Roman times, as evidenced by some epigraphic findings in the area of ​​the Scaliger castle.
In the period between 1195 and 1275 the castle was built under the rule of the Scaligeri; the town begins its expansion first around the nucleus of the castle and later in the territory at the foot of the fortress, towards the river Mincio.
After the fall of the Scala family and a short period under the domination of the Visconti, Ponti was included in the territory of the Serenissima Republic of Venice (starting from 1405 and definitively from 1426, under the Doge Francesco Foscari). The Venetian rule lasted until 1797, when, following the Napoleonic wars of Italy the year before (1796), the Cisalpine Republic was established (including the territories of Mantua, Brescia, Bergamo, Bologna, Ferrara, Massa, Carrara , Crema, Romagna and Valtellina); Ponti is aggregated to the VII district of Castiglione delle Siviere, included in the Department of the Mincio, under the French dominion.
In 1815, after the Congress of Vienna (and the Restoration), the Mantuan territory returns within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Ponti is included in the IV district of Volta, at the same time becoming part of the province of Mantua after centuries. After the wars of the Risorgimento and the battle of Solforino and San Martino (24 June 1859), Ponti passed under the province of Verona and in 1866 became part of the Kingdom of Italy, returning to the province of Mantua. With the beginning of the Italian state, the town took on the current name of Ponti sul Mincio .
The last step of a strictly administrative nature concerns the diocese, which, in 1977, after centuries, passed from Verona to Mantua, to standardize the municipal territories to the parish communities.
On 30 April 1945 in Ponti, and precisely in Monte Casale, one of the last battles of the liberation struggle from Nazi-Fascism takes place, with a clash between partisan groups (aided by soldiers of the Italian regular army and Anglo-American troops) and German units fleeing to the Alps.