In 1420, under the protection of Guido Gonzaga, Canon of the Cathedral and Commendatory Abbot of San Benedetto, a small group of Saint Jerome hermit monks founded a monastery  in the area where the Parcarello stream curves and flows into Mantua’s Lake Superiore.
Over the years, the Saint Jerome monks were offered donations, such as a small monastery, a church, land and buildings.

The modest religious community enjoyed the protection of the Gonzaga, who constantly granted concessions and privileges until the end of their dukedom. The monks mainly conducted a life of prayers and studies in their hermitage.

Very little changed in the Saint Jerome monastery during the next three centuries until the arrival of the Austrians, but following the ecclesiastical changes during the 18th century the monastery was suppressed in 1772. The complex was subsequently sold and the church and the convent were partly demolished. The new owner, the Marquis Annibale Cavriani, a member of the richest community of Mantua, radically transformed the area by building a mill for rice piling, the structure of which is still visible today.

In 1806 the Saint Jerome monastery was ceded to Giacomo Malacarne, who was then forced to sell all his properties to the Bonoris family. This family, mainly through its last descendant, the Count Gaetano Bonoris, turned this area into a major agricultural farm.

Upon the Count’s demise in 1923 a charitable corporation called the “Bonoris Foundation” took over the property. In 1970 the Saint Jerome monastery along with the annexed 155 “biolche mantovane” (local unit of land area) was purchased by the present owners.