Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake   At the Alp’s foot that shuts in Germany   Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,   ’Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,   With water that grows stagnant in that lake.Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor,   And he of Brescia, and the Veronese   Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong,   To front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,   Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.There of necessity must fall whatever   In bosom of Benaco cannot stay,   And grows a river down through verdant pastures.Soon as the water doth begin to run,   No more Benaco is it called, but Mincio,   Far as Governo, where it falls in Po.Not far it runs before it finds a plain   In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,   And oft ’tis wont in summer to be sickly.Passing that way the virgin pitiless   Land in the middle of the fen descried,   Untilled and naked of inhabitants;There to escape all human intercourse,   She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise   And lived, and left her empty body there.The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,   Collected in that place, which was made strong   By the lagoon it had on every side;They built their city over those dead bones,   And, after her who first the place selected,   Mantua named it, without other omen.Its people once within more crowded were,   Ere the stupidity of Casalodi   From Pinamonte had received deceit.Therefore I caution thee, if e’er thou hearest   Originate my city otherwise,   No falsehood may the verity defraud.”

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake   At the Alp’s foot that shuts in Germany   Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,   ’Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,   With water that grows stagnant in that lake.Midway a place is where the Trentine Pastor,   And he of Brescia, and the Veronese   Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.Sitteth Peschiera, fortress fair and strong,   To front the Brescians and the Bergamasks,   Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.There of necessity must fall whatever   In bosom of Benaco cannot stay,   And grows a river down through verdant pastures.Soon as the water doth begin to run,   No more Benaco is it called, but Mincio,   Far as Governo, where it falls in Po.Not far it runs before it finds a plain   In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,   And oft ’tis wont in summer to be sickly.Passing that way the virgin pitiless   Land in the middle of the fen descried,   Untilled and naked of inhabitants;There to escape all human intercourse,   She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise   And lived, and left her empty body there.The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,   Collected in that place, which was made strong   By the lagoon it had on every side;They built their city over those dead bones,   And, after her who first the place selected,   Mantua named it, without other omen.Its people once within more crowded were,   Ere the stupidity of Casalodi   From Pinamonte had received deceit.Therefore I caution thee, if e’er thou hearest   Originate my city otherwise,   No falsehood may the verity defraud.”" in the context of "Dante Alighieri, Inferno, XX, 61–99 (tr. H. W. Longfellow)
 • The lake Benaco or Benacus] Now called the Lago di Garda, though here said to lie between Garda, Val Camonica, and the Apennine, is, however, very distant from the latter two.
 • Midway a place is] Prato di Fame, where the dioceses of Trento, Verona, and Brescia met.
 • Peschiera] A garrison situated to the south of the lake, where it empties itself and forms the Mincius." to mean that wisdom is timeless.