Female Gentilite of Mantua, Mantova in Italian, Lombardy city in northern Italy, homeland Virgil, as the epitaph says about his alleged Neapolitan tomb : ( Mantua me genuit , Calabri rapuere. . . ) The Mantovana is a Renaissance song composed in the 16th century by the Italian musician Giuseppe Genci, also known as Giuseppino del Biado. The melody later appeared in different areas of Europe and in different composers such as Gasparo Zanetti, John Playford, Biagio Marini and in the nineteenth century in the symphonic poem Vltava (the Vltava) by Bedrich Smetana, a poem of which I have recently spoken and whose central theme is this melody, the sea of precious, that has captivated me.