The two towers of Bologna are the Torre degli Asinelli and Torre Garisenda. Together they are the emblematic icons of this city of students. In the past, Bologna had dozens of similar towers. These were not just defensive structures and lookout points, but also status symbols that rich families in…
The basilica of San Petronio is by far the largest church in all of Bologna, and also one of the largest in Italy. The building is 132 metres deep and 60 metres wide. The façade reaches a height of 51 metres and inside the vaults are at least 44 metres…
The Santa Maria dei Servi is the church of the Servites of Maria in Bologna. This order was founded in 1233 in Florence by a group of wealthy cloth traders. Official papal approval of the order had to wait until 1304. Construction of the Servite church in Bologna started in…
When we visited the church of San Giacomo Maggiore, we got the impression that tourists are not really welcome here. There was a large ‘no pictures’ sign (although the ban on photography does not seem to be strictly enforced) and very little light in the church, and the chapels with…
The complesso di Santo Stefano is a very special complex of churches, chapels, a courtyard and a cloister. Although the complex adjoins the Piazza Santo Stefano and a street named the Via Santo Stefano runs alongside the buildings towards the Porta Santo Stefano, the complex rather surprisingly does not have…
I have many travel guides about Italy. Almost all of them contain information about Bologna, but remarkably not a single one of them discusses the cathedral of the city. Apparently the Duomo of Bologna is fairly unknown and frequently skipped by tourists, which may have contributed to the common misconception…
Together with Franciscus of Assisi, Dominicus Guzmán can be counted among the most important church reformers of the thirteenth century. He was born around the year 1170 in the kingdom of Castile, now part of Spain. At the end of 1216 Pope Honorius III (1216-1227) approved his new Order of…
The church of San Francesco is an immense basilica in the centre of Bologna that stands about 500 metres west of the famous Piazza Maggiore. The apse of the edifice is a rather conspicuous part of the building, with huge flying buttresses that can be seen very well from Asinelli…
The Palazzo Farnese is an enormous palazzo in the centre of Piacenza. If the plans for the building had been fully executed, it would have been twice as large, but the palazzo was in fact never completed. Its history is nonetheless intriguing and starts with the Visconti family from Milan.…
The church of Santa Maria di Campagna adjoins the Piazzale delle Crociate, the ‘square of the Crusades’. The name of the church refers to the fact that it was built outside the city walls of Piacenza, i.e. in the country. The name of the square is in its turn connected…
The history of the church of San Sisto goes all the way back to the ninth century. It was founded in 874 by Engelberga of Parma, wife of King Louis II of Italy (844-875). This Louis was a grandson of Louis the Pious and therefore a great-grandson of Charlemagne. The…
The first thing visitors will notice about the church of San Francesco is its imposing gabled façade, or facciata a capanna as the Italians say. The façade was almost entirely executed in brick, has three little towers and is basically too big for the church building behind it: behind the…
The Piazza dei Cavalli is the large square in Piacenza’s city centre. Under normal circumstances it probably attracts sizeable crowds, but when we were there in August of 2020 the square was almost deserted. This likely had everything to do with fewer people in the streets because of the COVID-19…
The large church of San Giovanni in Canale can be found near the edge of Piacenza’s city centre. The San Giovanni was the church of the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. Many Dominican churches are dedicated to Saint Dominicus Guzmán, the Spanish founder of the order. This…
Saint Antoninus is considered the patron saint of Piacenza, together with Saint Justina of Antioch. According to a not necessarily reliable tradition he was a soldier who was martyred in about 303 during the persecutions of Christians orchestrated by the emperor Diocletianus. His martyrdom was said to have taken place…
In 218 BCE Piacenza was founded by the Romans as the Latin colony of Placentia. In the fourth century CE the city got its first Christian bishop, and towards the end of this century a certain Sabinus was appointed as the second bishop of Piacenza. Sabinus died at the beginning…
Rules are rules, and sitting on the steps of the cathedral is not allowed in Piacenza. It was a clear message that a cyclist who happened to be passing by conveyed to my better half and myself. It was a hot day and the sun was out in force. We…
The Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna is the running joke in our family. My better half once mistook it for the much more famous San Vitale and even wrote “San Vitale” on the back of a photograph of the Santa Maria. We had a good laugh about this silly…
It is by far the most conspicuous building in all of Ferrara: the Palazzo dei Diamanti. Its northern and eastern facade are made up of over 8.000 blocks of pink and white marble in the shape of pyramids. The tips of the pyramids are either pointing up, forward or down…
Our visit to Ferrara in July 2017 not only introduced us to a city with an interesting history, but also to the Ferrarese dialect. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant called Cusina e Butega, which would be Cucina e Bottega in standard Italian (and Kitchen and Shop in English).…