Tom`s travels: Ferrara (04/01/2025)

For a nice day trip, my mother, brother, Ania, and I decided to visit Ferrara, as Ania had never been there. Once there, we found parking close to the city center and then continued on foot. After approaching the old town, we started walking the nice narrow streets and came upon the first monumental building, the Palazzo Bentivoglio, a beautiful 15th-century Renaissance palace. A little further on, we reached the Piazza del Municipio, where the Palazzo Municipale is located. This 13th-century palace, later extended and refurbished during the 15th century, used to be the ducal residence of the Este family until the 16th century, when the court moved to the nearby castle. Nowadays, it hosts the town hall. In front of it stands the imposing, beautiful Romanesque cathedral, with still part of its facade covered in scaffolding. Continuing on our walk, we then reached the aforementioned Castello Estense. It was built starting in 1385 and later expanded and turned into the Este family's main seat, but still connected to the Palazzo Municipale with a covered passageway. It features a central courtyard, four towers at each corner, and is surrounded by a moat. We walked around it and then headed back towards the Cathedral on the square next to it, which had a small Christmas market. We walked around and then strolled through some side streets before looking for a place to have dinner. We first tried a local typical restaurant, but the wait was very long, so we instead opted for the nearby The Lab, where we had some tasty burgers. From the restaurant, we then continued on our walk, taking some side streets lined by old and nice buildings. Then we walked along Via delle Volte, a medieval street, as the name suggests, covered by arches from the 13th and 14th centuries. We then reached the southeastern side of town, where we visited the Monastery of Sant'Antonio in Polesine. The main part of the church, which can be freely visited, had a nice baroque decoration with a frescoed 17th-century ceiling. The rear church, known as the nuns' choir, can only be visited through a guided tour by one of the monastery's nuns. Once inside, the stern old nun with a faint voice that was very hard to hear showed us the three chapels of the rear church. The left one had the Stories of the Infancy of Jesus and the Life of the Virgin, the one on the right had the Stories of the Passion, both from the 14th century in a style like Giotto's, while the central one had frescoes from different periods and styles. After the visit, we exited the monastery and continued on through town until we reached the next monument, the Palazzo Schifanoia. One of the many so-called Delizie Estensi, a series of palaces and villas used by the Este family as a leisure retreat, it is the only surviving one inside the city walls. It was built in 1385, and its name is thought to originate from the Italian for escaping from boredom. Its simple exterior with a nice marble facade hides its splendid interior. As it's now a museum, we paid the entry fee and started the tour of the palace. We first saw some of the older rooms with part of the old wall frescoes and wooden ceilings still visible. Then the highlight came, the Salone dei Mesi, or Hall of the Months, a room decorated at

the behest of Borso d'Este by the best painters of the Ferrarese school active around 1470. The hall is 24 meters long, 11 meters wide and 7.5 meters high, and the fresco cycle starts from the southern side with each of the months of the year taking a section of the wall, further divided into three horizontal bands: two figured ones of greater height at the top and bottom and a central, narrower one with a blue background, shows the zodiac sign of the month. Some months, from October to February, have been nearly completely lost, while others, from March to September, feature some of the best Renaissance frescoes. Triumphs of Roman gods were frescoes on the upper part, while the lower parts were dedicated to the scenes of the life of Borso d'Este. Due to its artistic merit and references to the neo-Platonic and astrological culture of the era, the cycle of frescoes represents one of the most important moments in Renaissance art linked to the history of the Este family. We stood there gazing in awe at the lifelike frescoes and the overall amazing setting of that room. After visiting the rest of the museum, which was still worth it and featured many old objects and other frescoes rooms we headed outside as it had gotten dark. We walked shortly and reached the church of Santa Maria in Vado, with a beautifully frescoed 16th-century Renaissance interior. Next up was the church of San Francesco, built at the end of the 15th century with a simple but nice Renaissance interior. From there, we then walked to the northern side of the old town where the so-called Erculean Addition is set. This area, celebrated as an example of Renaissance urban planning, was created in 1492 by the enlargement of the walled city limits of Ferrara under the initiative of the duke Ercole d'Este. In this grid-like area of the city were straight roads, low buildings, and lots of inner gardens and green areas. Among the buildings, we stopped to admire the well-known Palazzo dei Diamanti, a Renaissance palace featuring thousands of white marble blocks with pinkish tones carved to represent diamonds, hence its name. At that point, we started heading back towards the core of the city, passing once again the castle and arriving at the cathedral. We visited its interior. Built in a Romanesque style in 1177, despite the scaffolding covering the majority of the facade, we could still partly admire the beautiful loggias, small arcades, and rose windows. The interior was completely remade in the baroque style during the 18th century, with some nice altars. After the visit to the Cathedral, we had one last walk around the area, visiting the Christmas market now during nighttime which was quite nice to see. From there, we eventually got back to the car and drove home.