Goito

Goito (Upper Mantovano: ) is a comune with a population of 10,005 in the Province of Mantua in Lombardy. Goito is north of Mantua on the road leading to Brescia and Lake Garda, and straddles the old east–west Via Postumia between Cremona and Verona. The town is on the right bank of the Mincio River at a key crossing. The birthplace of Sordello, Goito is part of the historic region known as Alto Mantovano (Upper Mantua) and was the site of a notable fortress. Etymology Goito generally indicates an area of Gothic settlement, and is a common toponym in Italy; a similar example is godega. In 1902, Italian legal scholar Nino Tamassia published a document from 1045 which was brought to his attention by scholar F. C. Carreri and indicated that at least some of Goito's inhabitants said that they still lived "according to Gothic law" ("qui professimus legem vivere Gothorum"). Local histories by Federico Amedei, Livio Calafassi and Giovanni Tassoni have agreed on the toponym's Gothic origin. Historian Pietro Pelati, however, said that the name drives from guttus (a Latin term for a water vase, often indicating a settlement by a river). History Antiquity In pre-Roman antiquity, present-day Goito stood at a crossing of the river Mincio halfway between the Celtic Cenomani towns of Brescia and Verona and the Etruscan and Boii settlement of Mantua. The Cenomani tribe soon became Roman clients, but goodwill between them and the expanding Roman Republic did not last. Eventually, allied with the Insubres and Boii, they participated in a series of revolts between 200 and 197 BCE orchestrated and aided by a Carthaginian general named Hamilcar; modern historians, however, call Hamilcar's role "minimal". The Cenomani and Insubres were defeated at an unspecified crossing of the Mincio in 197 BCE by the Roman consul Gaius Cornelius Cethegus; during the battle, the Cenomani may have betrayed the Insubres. Roman rule of the upper Mantua began.