Bononia
a peregrinatibus Bologna is unusual for the consistency of the urban structure within its medieval walls, which were built in the fourteenth century. This urban structure is still intact and dominates, even visually, the single architectural works of art. In Florence and in Rome, the individual buildings are more important than the layout of the cities, whereas in Bologna the reserve is true. Here, even the most beautiful Renaissance and Baroque palaces are part of the medieval city plan, which extends like the spokes of a wheel from the heart of the city (marked by the two leaning towers, Asinelli and Garisenda). Bologna has no squares built to give prominence to imposing façades. The uninterrupted roads and 35 kilometres of colonnades, which characterise the city, do not allow its palaces to be isolated. A masterpiece such as Bevilacqua Palace, with its magnificent diamond-faceted façade, or the palaces of the senatorial nobility (Fantuzzi, Albergati, Montanari) are suddenly found standing at the edge of the road, and large doorways open up dramatically revealing spectacular interiors, magnificent courtyards and wide staircases. It is not entirely by chance that the Bibienas came from this city and after their triumph in Bologna joined, as famous scenic designers, the eighteenth century European courts. The fourteenth and seventeenth centuries are the golden years of Bolognese art. It is due to the works of art carried out in those periods that Bologna became one of the cities included in the Grand Tour which all the Romantic artists and writers, from Füssli and Goethe to Stendhal, undertook from the north towards Rome. The first great achievement in the figurative arts was the result of the cosmopolitan culture which the environment of the University of Bologna had advanced. The Gothic religious monuments, the churches and convents of St. Francis and St. Dominic, with the tombs of the glossators, are the outward sign of the privileged relationship the city had with northern Italy. This northern influence also stimulated a development in painting and in manuscript illumination in the fourteenth century in opposition to the style imposed by Giotto and the Florentine School. In the seventeenth century, too, the picture by the Carracci, Guido Reni and Guercino are anti-Baroque, in contrast to the dominant style of Rome. This laid the foundations for the cult of Classicism and of Raphael, which ensured the fame of the Bolognese painting school in France and in England. The development of the Studium had a considerable effect on the urban structure, encouraging a series of initiatives which added some splendid features to the University nucleus. Among these were students' colleges (for instance the famous Spanish College founded in 1367), the seat of the Studium requested by Pope Pius IV (now the Archiginnasio Palace, where the magnificent, seventeenth century deal Anatomy Theatre is to be found), Cardinal Poggi's Palace (where the Studium was transferred during the time of Napoleon), and the Observatory tower, which was constructed in 1712 as a symbol of the new scientific culture. However, we also remember the medieval towers, the group of five churches called St. Stephen and the imposing church of St. Petronius, which dominates the main square of the city, where the medieval and Renaissance Town Hall is also to be seen. Despite the demolition carried out in the nineteenth century and the destruction caused during the last world war, the urban structure of Bologna has maintained both its integrity and its charm. |