At few kilometres distance from Mantua, there is San Benedetto Po, the municipality which received the 2012 Gioiello d’Italia award. The name, San Benedetto Po – formerly, San Benedetto in Polirone – is linked to the Benedictine monastery founded in 1007 by Tedaldo di Canossa on the island between the Po and Lirone rivers. The city’s centre has developed on the river’s bank and around the vast monastic complex, which has had a primary role in the community’s life over the course of the centuries and up to our day. Due to its religious, political, and cultural commitment, the monastery has occupied a fundamental role in the history of Italian monasticism up until it was suppressed (1797) by Napoleone Bonaparte. More than one thousand years of history are part of this monumental complex. To Village Card owners special price for visiting: - Abbey Church; - Monastic Refectory; - San Simeone, San Benedetto and Secolari cloisters of the fifteenth century; - Ancient Cellars of the Sixteenth century; - Sala del Capitolo; - Civico Polironiano Museum