The sounds: an indescribable mix of human and animal footsteps, rosaries and Marian hymns, dialectal motions of spirit, calls of barkers and the ringing voices of children... The smells: a mixture of vapors created by the crowds heated by the August heat, animal manure, the scents coming from the kitchens of the inns that prepare bread and cotechino, the sweetish aroma of icing sugar and almonds in dessert banquets, the dust of the streets raised by thousands of soles... For centuries, men and women, on foot or on horseback, on wagons first and then on cars, on trams or buses, by bike or boat, have been meeting at Grazie for the Assumption Fair in mid-August in Mantua, between sacred and profane. The village welcomes, now as in the past, the crowds coming from the territory but also from neighboring provinces, at that crossroads that, just outside Mantua, marks the road on one side to Lake Garda and on the other to the Cremona area, a land route and a water route that in agriculture has expressed its most authentically Virgilian civilization. The Assumption Fair has a birth certificate that attests that everything started from that 11 August 1425, the date of a cry signed by Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, captain of the people, but which certainly attests to a phenomenon that already exists around the sanctuary, consecrated in 1406 and governed by the Franciscans. Since then, it has been established that on 14 and 15 August in Grazie, in conjunction with the Marian midsummer festival, a fair will take place where you can buy basic necessities (such as wine, bread, cooked and raw meat) without paying the usual duty. If Gonzaga's imagination probably could not predict the success of this fair over one hundred years old, the documents contain details that testify how this pit immediately became an opportunity for meetings and commerce far beyond the borders of Mantua, so much so that in 1461 local products were protected, distinguishing them from foreign ones. The continuity of the event is guaranteed over time, except for medical suspensions, such as the plagues of 1469, 1523, 1529, 1555-1556, 1630, or on special occasions (in 1509 Isabella ordered that it should not be done because her husband Francis II was a prisoner of the Venetians and, for example, in 1540 a mourning edition was organized, or without dancing, for the death of Duke Frederick II). The tradition is well established, so much so that attempts to change the date are blocked immediately after 1530, the year in which September 8 - Nativity of Mary, will take place, so as not to overlap with the Gonzaga Fair. Public security has been controlled since its origins, for example, since 1488 there has been a ban on carrying weapons, while, at the same time, trade grew: since 1499 it was in fact possible to deal not only with food but also with other goods related to work, home and person. Since 1563, Duke Guglielmo, who had extended the edition to nine days, allowed the sale of luxury fabrics, the result of textile manufacturing and the cultivation of silkworms. Faced with an increase in the number of visitors in 1563, the guardian father of the sanctuary, Fra Paolo della Volta, ordered that a porch with fifty-two arches be erected, so as to be able to guarantee the reception of pilgrims who, with their animals, could quench their thirst at the fountain wanted by Duke Federico II. In the Gonzaga phase, the fair grew to such an extent that it became the first not only among those in Mantua but in the entire Lombard area, so much so that in 1652, at the time of Carlo II Gonzaga Nevers, or ahead of other cities that would build them only in the seventies of the eighteenth century, masonry structures were built that will house the shops. In 1678, the Piazza di Grazie will host 186, a tangible sign of the importance of trade, a heritage that the Austrians, who have ruled Mantua since 1707, will not be able to ignore. In 1708, in fact, Emperor Joseph I confirmed the fair for eight days and so will Maria Theresa of Austria and Leopold II. In particular, the Empress will give a further boost to trade, providing concrete benefits for agriculture and commerce and encouraging the silk industry. Health checks will continue and some editions will not be held to avoid infections among cattle (in 1714, 1721-22). For their part, the French (in Mantua since 1797), although intending to continue the fair, will have to order the suspension due to foot-and-mouth disease until 1801. Even after a tragic shipwreck, which occurred in 1789, in which twenty-three pilgrims lost their lives, in those years significant attention was also paid to water transport, with the introduction of controls relating to the carrying capacity of boats and the suitability of boatmen. With the return of the Austrians, in 1814, the fair continued (except for the editions of 1817, suspended for health reasons, and that of 1859, prevented by the Second War of Independence) and the provisions continue to make river and land transport safer, in this second case with specific regulations for wagon drivers and knights. When Mantua and the Venetian provinces are also Italian in 1866, the fair will never stop - with the exception of 1873 for health reasons, the three-year period 1914 to 1916, due to the First World War, and the tragic summer of the bombs of 1944 - and it will be a constant presence in the lives of Mantuan people and not only to the present day. It will be a place of celebration and special praise to the Virgin for the end of the Second World War when, in 1945, one hundred thousand people arrive at Grazie in three days and, with them, also fifteen hundred horses and three hundred and fifty cattle. As the economic environment changes, gradually, the fair will also change its appearance and the rural footprint will turn its attention from livestock to agricultural and industrial machinery. After the boom of the Sixties, however, this will quickly lead to the crisis of the early Seventies. With the decline of this type of market, the fair was also following the same fate but, just at the time of its decline, here was the turning point: in 1973 the invention of the meeting of the Madonnari, with the union of local forces, the administration and the volunteers of the proloco, revived the fortunes and gave the fair a vital boost that still resists over time and that accompanies pilgrims and tourists on the Way of the Sacred, between tradition and new energies.