BED AND BREAKFAST IN BOLOGNA   ACCOMMODATION IN BOLOGNA   ERBORISTERIA   WEBMASTER

Jakob Burckhardt the great historian of the Italian Renaissance wrote, "Considering individual buildings, there are four or five cities preceeding Bologna, but it is and remains the most beautiful Italian city judged as a whole". Leaving Burckhardt with the responsibility for the superlative, it is certain anyway that his judgement emphasised a recognizable feature of the city, that is the beauty of its urban plan. This means that Bologna's historic centre is not just to be visited for one particular "splendid" feature in front of which one is "amazed" and then departs. On the contrary, it is a homogeneous ensemble which has grown through the centuries by means of contrasts and new syntheses: a unique monument. Therefore, it seems reasonable to try and explain the story of this remarkable urban development-which coincides, essentially, with the economic and political history of the town-especially as we have the advantage that Bologna has, after Venice, the best preserved historic centre in Europe. Therefore our story develops from its origin to the present day and aims at explaining the various stages of its growth which has produced a complex of streets, towers, buildings and monasteries, all of them linked by portico (arcades), a long binding ribbon for a city which has been defined as "a great basket of terracotta". In fact, with its thirty five kilometres of porticoes Bologna has the greatest number of porticoes in the whole world.
In this way Bologna, on this side of the Apennines has become the anti-Florence. Each town illuminates the other. Florence, which is indeed an open-air museum of rare works, is counter-balanced in Bologna by the "atmosphere" which can be found in every single street of our red and grey urban complex, a city made to be lived in.

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General - Environment - Iron and Etruscan Age - Roman Age - Patron Saint- The Commune - Alma mater studiorum - Re Enzo - Porticoes - St Peter - Gothic - 14th Century - Piazza Maggiore - Aristocratic palaces - Brick and other stones - Early 15th Century - Archiginnasio - Counter Reformation Renaissance - 16th Century - Great portico ribbons - Frescoes in palaces - The "scenographic" city -  Napoleon's republics - Fall of Church power - The Restoration - Haussmann style - The new Century - Floreal style - Rationalism - World War - Active preservation - Around 2000