The charming town of Asti in Piemonte has Roman origins. Asti was founded in the second century in Ligurian territory as Hasta. Hasta is the Latin word for a lance, but in this case the name presumably derives from a Celtic or Ligurian word for “hill”. After the fall of…
On a sunny Friday morning we drove into the centre of the charming town of Casale Monferrato in Piemonte. The name of the town suggests that it was once not much to look at. A casale is a farm or rural settlement. Casale was indeed of little importance for a…
If you want to visit the church of San Domenico in Casale Monferrato, make sure you plan your visit well. The immense and impressive church is unfortunately often closed to the public, but on a Sunday morning between 9:30 and 11:30 the doors should be open. When we arrived at…
The Palazzo dei Normanni is the royal palace of Palermo. The name “palace of the Normans” dates from the twentieth century. It is a name that is not necessarily incorrect – the building was indeed a residence of the Norman kings of Sicily – but it does ignore that many…
The basilica of San Lorenzo is among the oldest and most famous churches of Florence. The church is immediately recognisable by its unfinished façade and the enormous dome of the chapel behind the choir, the famed Cappella dei Principi. There is probably no church in Florence that has a closer…
There was a simple explanation for the long, motionless queue in front of the Palazzo Te in Mantova: there had been a power cut, so it was momentarily impossible to print tickets. Paying by card was also not an option as long as the problem had not been fixed. Fortunately…
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 Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Angel) is one of the most conspicuous buildings along the river Tiber. It is difficult to imagine that this imposing cylindrical drum on a large square platform was once the tomb of the Roman Emperor Hadrianus (117-138), also known as Hadrian. The original decorations…
Being Dutch, I had a good reason to want to visit the Santa Maria dell’Anima. Here we can find the tomb of the only Dutch pope in history, Adrianus VI. I had already been to Rome many times since 1996, but somehow never found time to visit this church, which…
The Santa Croce in Gerusalemme is an old Roman Catholic church that is just within the third century Aurelian Walls of the city. The church is architecturally and culturally rather unimpressive, but it is very important from a religious point of view. There has been a Christian place of worship…