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With streets like embroidered cloth, threaded with the arches of continuous colonnades, the heart of Bologna is a giant cloister. Under processions of classical columns and in the shadows cast between the half-moons of its winding alleys, the city inspires a furtive combination of intimacy and wandering, revealing her secrets to the unhurried visitor prepared to be led astray. Above and behind the chiaroscuro porticoes Bologna is a rose-red city of bombastic churches and vainglorious palaces, lasting testaments to the architectural flattery bestowed by the papal and civic forces that vied for control of the city. Striving for immortality, these patriarchs commissioned lavish chapels, frescoes and tombs, creating in the process one of the most influential schools of Italian art and bequeathing to the city a litter of monuments and masterpieces. These remain in good condition and accessible, not ominously sotto restauro, as elsewhere in Italy.
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