I’d planned to go on an English tour of the city, which conveniently happens on Saturdays at 10:15. In the event there were only three of us, and a charming Bolognese lady called Carla spent over two hours taking us round almost all of the places of historical interest that were already on my list.
Much detail about the history of Bologna and the construction of the huge and important buildings on the four sides of the central Piazza Maggiore. One of these is the church of San Petronio, which if built to the original plans would have been larger than St Peter’s in Rome, though construction was halted and money spent on building a permanent home alongside it for Bologna’s already well-established university. The Gothic church is remarkably light and spacious inside, due partly to the slender pillars being unusually widely spaced; the pillars are of brick – there is very little marble in Bologna – beautifully shaped and fluted. The aisle is surrounded by 22 chapels, each originally sponsored by a local wealthy family and with notably different designs. Unfortunately photographs are strictly forbidden.
Worked our way through the bustling market stalls in Via Clavature, off the central piazza, to Santo Stefano, really a complex of four (originally seven) churches, the oldest dating back to the 5th century. Also here is the only (I think) intact replica of Christ’s sepulchre in Jerusalem – it was the habit to build such a replica on returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
We returned to the centre along a recently opened (about nine years ago) pathway through the later buildings showing how there used to be a direct route to these churches. A long distance Roman road ran through Bologna – one of the reasons it became a rich city – and part of this is visible in the basement of a stylish modern furniture shop constructed inside one of the Mediaeval buildings; the huge cobblestones of the road must have given an incredibly uncomfortable ride.
Finished the tour with my second visit to the anatomical theatre in the University, with information about the old coats of arms of the early students (you had to be well off in those days) which decorate the arches of the university building. We were unable to see inside a lecture room, still in use today of course, but apparently they are decorated in a similar way.
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