Bosco della Fontana (Fontana Wood) is located in the municipality of Marmirolo, at a stone’s throw from Mantua and covers an area of 233 hectares and is the remains of the pristine forests which previously covered the whole Po Plain. The visitor is welcomed by a thick and tangled broadleaf forest featuring ever diverse features in every season. a series of rectilinear lanes criss-cross over and over and create circular glades that make walking in the woods easier and more alluring. A XVIIth century small palace is located almost in the middle of the forest, commissioned by Vincenzo I, the Duke of Mantua, when the forest was a game preserve belonging to the Gonzagas. Near the Palace, the spring that gives this place its name - “La fontana” (the Spring) - flows out of the ground; this fountainhead has been known since the XIIth century, when the Gonzagas (not yet the Lords of Mantua) bought this vast estate. The Fontana Wood is presently an estate of the Demanio Forestale (Public Forests) and since 1976 an Oriented Biogenetic Natural Reserve. The Corpo Forestale dello Stato (State Forest Rangers) have been charged with the management and keeping of the Reserve, whilst the whole project has been entrusted to the staff of the Centro Nazionale per lo studio e la Conservazione della Biodiversità Forestale (National Centre for the Study and Protection of Forest Biodiversity), established on this very site in 2001.