Tourist Attraction in Mantua:
Sinagoga Norsa Torrazzo
The Norsa Torrazzo synagogue, built in 1513 but rebuilt in 1751, is located in Mantua. It's a National Monument Six were the synagogues in the ancient ghetto of Mantua. When the demolition of the Jewish quarter was decided at the end of the nineteenth century, between 1899 and 1902, one of them was relocated and faithfully reconstructed in the courtyard of the current building, which since 1825 was a resting place. The synagogue Norsa Torrazzo, of Italian rite, is thus the only one in Mantua who survived with its original 18th-century furnishings. Other synagogues were demolished at the beginning of the twentieth century and their furnishings went missing or were transferred to Israel. The prayer room is rectangular. The walls and vault are covered with stucco (lofty lofts of originals that could not be detached), exalting the magnificence of the Norsa family or reproducing biblical verses in Hebrew. The aron and the tevah face, one on the left, the other on the right of the entrance, placed in two monumental niches, raised on three steps and lit by windows. Both are finely worked wood and embellished with embroidered fabrics. Two parallel shades of dark wooden benches welcome the two sides. Wrought iron chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The matroneo is placed on the entrance wall and faces the hall with a balustrade open on columns. The Norsa Torrazzo synagogue is a national monument and is regularly open to the public today. In the premises of the synagogue building is the Jewish community of Mantua and the Jewish Cultural Association of Mantua. At the entrance to a tombstone, on April 25, 1998, it reminds the "64 Jewish citizens" deported from Mantua during the Holocaust "to the Nazi extermination camps from which they did not return". The last floor is occupied by a historical archive that houses documents from 1522 to 1861 and the administrative one with documentation from 1861 to the present. In addition to books and manuscripts, there are 19th-century musical scores, civil status records and judgments and papers of the Jewish court.
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