This post will take you through Giulio Romano’s Mantova, Michele Sanmicheli’s Verona, Palladio’s Vicenza, as well as Bologna, one of my favorite, and Ferrara, the quintessential day trip destination – at a high level and at 200 mph. This selection of mid-size cities combines tourist destinations and gems thoroughly ignored by traveler, all architecturally distinguished at one time or another, all urbane and full of life today, and therefore a perfect complement to the elegant rustic charm of the the wine valley.
Mantova is a singular Renaissance gem of a city just across the border with Lombardia, it will stay etched in your touring memory for a while. Just across the border with Lombardia and due South of Verona, isolated from industrial outskirts by three artificial lakes on the Mincio river, connecting Lago di Garda with the more famous Po, and some parkland, the historic town stands alone in its setting, and is truly unlike any other. Whether you simply walk through at the central squares – admiring the imposing facades of Mantova’s palatial complex, built for the Gonzaga family during the 13th – 16th centuries to form what was one of Europe’s most important Renaissance courts, and the magnificent church interiors in the city center – or approach the treasures of the excellent museums of its ducal castle more deliberately, you will enjoy a few hours in this city’s compact and animated center. By no means my recommendation, but if you do decide to ditch the arts & culture and and settle for food and wine, and sightseeing instead, arrive in late afternoon just before the obligatory aperitivo hour so you could witness the town’s surprisingly stylish locals as they leave work and before they sill the piazza and and sidewalk terraces.
Nearby Verona, overrated and exhausting, not an inspiring combo for a city next to the Valoplicella paradise. No, it is not offensive, and has quite a few things to offer, but Itay’s fourth largest tourist destination, right after Rome, Venice and Florence? Really? where are the world class museums then, the major contributors to whole periods in the history of the art – or of international trade and banking? I doubt the excessive stats are due to its famous Roman amphitheater and its opera program, and how many enthusiasts of the 1st century AD city gates are out there to make this about Porta Borsari or the Arch of the Gavii, and if it were the medieval towers, Torre del Gardello or Torre dei Lamberti, Bologna would be among Italy’s most visited cities but it’s not. How much of this is due to Romeo and Juliette – and that balcony everyone is taking pictures of as if it’s last chance to photograph the balcony before it goes on tour? To be fair, Verona does have a rich history, and is full of nicely restored, cheerful and colorful facades, numerous belfries, and alternating horizontal bands of red brick and stone – they are to Verona’s Romanesque and Gothic churches of San Zeno Maggiore and San Fermo Maggiore what stripes of black and white marble are to medieval churches of Genoa, Pistoia, Lucca, Pisa. A stroll through the kiosks on Piazza delle Erbe in the morning can be as satisfying as a meal at the city’s several reliably top notch restaurants, including the 150 year old Bottega del Vino with its wine cellar (its offshoot helped rule NYC’s gourmet Italian scene for a decade before closing its doors more recently). Palazzo Maffei with its balustrade and statues, the column with the lion of San Marco on the piazza in front of it – a reminder that Verona, Vicenza, Padova were all ruled by Venice since the very early 1400’s – will impress, especially at night, as will the Piazza dei Signori and Loggia del Consiglio with its Venetian Renaissance order, or the exquisite detail and color of its central squares. The imposing Castelvecchio and Ponte Scaligero with their crenellated parapets, battlements and towers, are impossible not to like, and the views of the city center and the river bend form the top of its wall are unexpectedly beautiful. The museums of Castelvecchio, frescos, and modern art, and the Chapter library of manuscripts are first rate. The paired columns of the double tier arcade of the Chapter cloister is jaw dropping as is the Duomo with its bell tower. But don’t expect authenticity, it will be tough to find amid hordes of American, Middle Eastern, Subcontinental, and East Asian tourists.
Vicenza, La Citta Preziosa, a City of Gems, this quaint but somewhat faded art city is the city of Palladio, in every way the epicenter of Palladian architecture, inseparable from the great architect who deliberately transformed a Gothic city into the classical Vicenza that would to inspire as a blueprint and textbook for generations. This is a city of restrained and noble Renaissance loggias crowned by rows of attic statuary – Palazzo Chiericati by Palladio home to Musei Civici with top names of Venetian school, Van Dyck, and drawings by Palladio, Palazzo Barbarano hosting Palladio Museum and Palazzo Porto, both by Palladio, Palazzo Thiene by Palladio and Giulio Romano, an accomplished Mannerist painter and the court architect of the Gonzaga dukes in Mantua, Palazzo Trissino by Vincenzo Scamozzi and now the municipal building, and Palazzo Zamberlan-Farino – and often containing the most theatrically extravagant decorations inside – Palazzo Leoni Montanari form 17th century also housing an art gallery.
What about all the Veneto villas in the province of Vicenza? The hills around it are home to La Rotonda, the OG of Palladian villas and perhaps most famous of them all, the round plan takes full advantage of its hilltop position, call to see if open. The route form Vicenza to Bassano del Grappa is lined with villas, but focusing on the 1500’s, of note are the classical Villa Pisani and Villa Cordelino Lombardi, the starkly monumental 19th century Villa Capello Morosini and Villa Rezzonico Borella, both next to Bassano del Grappa, Villa Piovene, Villa Da Porto Casarotto within 10 km of Vicenza, the ornate Villa Loschi Zileri Dal Verme, and the exceptional Villa Barbarigo, its loggias with rows of paired columns and skyline features strikingly reminiscent of Pallazzo Chiericati in Vicenza, call ahead to see which ones may be open for a quick stop, the clean lines of the Renaissance exteriors are easily admired but the superb frescos and trompe l’oeil covering their atria and room enfilades can only enhance the experience and the viewing pleasure.
Vicenza is home to Europe’s first purpose-built, enclosed stage, Teatro Olimpico, a masterpiece of Palladio, its unique interior replicates classical outdoor theaters with full three-dimensional effect, featuring a permanent full-scale stage set of finest classical architectural detail. Designed by Scamozzi for the opening performance, the stage set was left in place, complete with sculptures, niches, reliefs, even streets running perpendicular to stage raised and narrowed towards the far end to covey an exaggerated perspective effect, actors performing amid the tiers of prototype monumental facades. A colonnade encircles the far end of the amphitheater, supporting a balustraded entablature lined by statues of members of the academy that sponsored the theater. Vicenza’s Piazza dei Signori with its twin columns – a winged lion leaving no doubt as to the city’s more famous master – counts as one of Italy’s finest urban squares, forming a corridor between the 15th century, pre-Palladian Palazzo del Monte di Pieta with the church of San Vincenzo and the Bailica Palladiana.
The look of countless government buildings, educational campuses, civic monuments across the Western world owes a significant debt to Andrea Palladio and his mid-1500’s Renaissance buildings in Vicenza and around it, more so than any other single Italian master. His works in the city – especially his two most famous buildings on the piazza, they span his creative carrier, the Basilica Palladiana with Torre Bissara tower, really a palace of justice, and Loggia del Capitano built for the city’s Venetian ruler – have exerted a disproportionately deep architectonic influence on Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Garnier. Palladio’s Vicenza buildings directed the imagination of Jefferson, one of he founding fathers and an amateur architect, in his design of the University of Virginia campus, planting Palladian vocabulary firmly in the center of architectural language of national pride that would shape American public and institutional buildings for the next two centuries. Garnier borrowed heavily from Basilica Palladiana, using its main ordonnance of perfectly proportioned Serliana loggias as the prototype for the seven bay wide loggia, framed by sixteen major double columns and fourteen minor ones, that defines and enlivens the main facade of his ostentatious Palais Garnier Opera house in Paris, one of the world’s most iconic and richest facades and one of the symbols of the City of Light. Perhaps Garnier was searching to echo at the focal point of the most visually striking of Haussmann’s boulevards, Avenue de l’Opera, the main colonnade built by Claude Perrault along the Easternmost facade of the Louvre in the 1660’s that would define the official national style of the newly centralized and absolutist France for centuries to come? Perhaps he was also looking to soften the defining work of austere Classicism of Perrault’s colonnade, a symbol of its decisive pivot away from traditional Italian influences in the arts, with a pure Renaissance motif – by 1875, centuries old insecurities of the French relative to Italy had faded anyway making it acceptable to go to the source – in a nod to the birthplace of opera or simply to soften and humanize the monumental facade? But wait, Garnier added another spotlight on Palladio and his Vicenza of the 1500’s, Teatro Olimpico, started by Palladio and finished by his famous student Vincenzo Scamozzi, – the permanent articulated stage design, served as the source of Garnier’s inspiration and was transposed to the main facade of the Paris Opera to portray to the maximum the essential function of all the other parts of this mesmerizing building.
Bologna is one of my favorite cities in Italy, scandalously underrated and nearly devoid of tourists – everyone must have been so busy taking selfies in front of the Romeo and Juliette balcony that they missed the train from Verona, how else do you explain it? It is, however, full of historical gems and sightseeing treasures, and you know what happens when your expectations are low at the same time. Today equal in size to Florence, it also occupies the same footprint as it did in the 13th century when it was among Europe’s 5 most populous cities. Its dense medieval and renaissance rivals Venice, Genoa and Lyon in size and believed to be Europe’s 2nd largest. Home to the world’s oldest university and, for centuries, one of the most prestigious, it offers easy going jazz bar scene, and lots of color, mostly pink and red. This city is best discovered with no destination or obligatory agenda in mind, by directionless walking, and this is where Italy’s, and the Europe’s, longest stretch of arcaded sidewalks may come in handy. Bologna is a city of small destinations – tiny obscure museums, old and new, with ponderous collections, are scattered around – and don’t underestimate the Bologna school of painting or the historical significance of Papal rule in the 1500’s or coronation of Charles V as the Holy Roman Emperor that took place here. This city is known for its tall medieval towers built by leading patrician families who used the tower height to outmatch each other or compensate for something – to see them in such concentration you would need to be in Tuscany’s San Gimigniano, Liguria’s Albengo, or Piemonte’s Asti, only here they are taller, more spectacular, more proud – the Torre Asinelli, next to the leaning and more picturesque Torre Garisenda, offers spectacular views of the city’s maze of red roof nooks and crannies as a reward for a steep climb to the top. Bologna is rich, it is home to Ducati and Bugatti, and centuries old textile industry, it is known for its luxury goods scene. As one would expect from the main city of Emilia-Romagna province, its gastronomic traditions do not disappoint, but to appreciate its superb restaurant scene you would need to treat the city with a bit more respect than you would a day trip destination, and stay overnight, well worth it. A major highlight is Quadrilatero, Italy’s most interesting and surprising old market hidden in the stalls along the medieval lanes behind the wall of the central square, this the maze of lively narrow streets hosted the city’s guildhouses and trades, what a study in contrasts with the paved acreage of huge Piazza Maggiore right on the other side of the wall. Its shops, delis, and kiosks are amazing, full of character, and so are the locals preoccupied with the immediate task of grocery shopping as only locals can be, you can’t fake this. The aperitivo scene is taken at least as seriously as in Torino, Bolzano or the traditional centers of that scene in the country’s North – and when I say here, the epicenter of the scene is conveniently right in and around the city’s market.
Padova, Ferrara, even Trento, based on my experience, are very excellent candidates for a one day city break if you are in need of one while in the wine country and still have the stamina, they are along the same rail line or easily reachable from Valpolicella by car. But I have to stop somewhere, consider this food for thought for my next blog post.
