Verona - Centro storico Travel Guides | Verona | Sub Regions | Verona - Centro storico

Verona’s city walls have been moved outwards on more than one occasion, but for the purpose of this book, centro storico means the original extent of the Roman city enclosed within the bend of the river Adige, west as far as the original reach of the city walls at Porta Borsari and south as far as Porta Leoni. Within this small space is an extraordinary concentration of churches, Roman remains, ancient frescoed palazzi, towers and piazzas. The layout of streets still more or less follows the original Roman pattern of a grid of perpendicular streets with a decumanus maximus and a cardo maximus meeting at the forum, now piazza Erbe, centre of both ancient and contemporary Verona.

Sights

At the confluence of the two main Roman streets, the cardo maximus (modern day via Leoni, via Cappello and via San Egidio) and the decumanus maximus (corso Porta Borsari and corso Sant’Anastasia), piazza Erbe sits on the site of the Roman forum, the centre of ancient life, and is still the heart of the city today. Indeed, the market here is the subject of one of the city’s major controversies.

At the square’s northern end, the 17th-century Palazzo Maffei was built on the site of the Roman Capitol. It is now home to a very smart restaurant. The six statues along the top are, from left to right, Hercules, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Apollo and Minerva. To its left is Torre del Gardello, also known as the Torre delle Ore, built in 1370 and the city’s oldest bell tower. The clock is now bell-less, its ring having been taken to the Museo di Castelvecchio.

The column topped by a lion, symbol of Venice, is the Colonna di San Marco, first built in 1523. It was originally pulled down on the fall of the Venetian empire, but was re-erected with a new lion in 1886.

The Fontana Madonna Verona, one of the beloved symbols of the city, is in fact a mish-mash of Roman remains. The basin was taken from the thermal baths of Sant’Anastasia, the statue from the Capitol. The statue was erected in the 4th century in honour of the emperor’s lifting of the city’s debts. The fountain was added by Cansignorio della Scala in 1368.

On the eastern side of the piazza, the Casa Mazzanti, once used by the Scaligeri family for storing grain, has a cycle of allegorical frescoes by Cavalli from around 1530, illustrating ignorance, good government and envy. The portico, now filled with cafés selling various ice-cream concoctions, was built in 1480. In the cellars of these buildings, 3.5 m down from the present-day surface, the original paving of the Roman forum has been found. The houses opposite also have remnants of frescoes, from the 15th century, including a depiction of Hercules and the Hydra by Caroto.

Just to the south of the Casa Mazzanti, via della Costa leads under the Arco della Costa (Arch of the Rib) through to piazza dei Signori. The arch is so-called because of the whale bone which hangs underneath it. Various myths are attached to the bone, including one which states that the person upon whom it falls will become king of Verona. The most probable theory about its origins is that it was hung there by one of the chemists whose shops were around the arch, perhaps as a sign, perhaps as a reminder of mortality, perhaps merely as decoration. The first depiction of the bone comes in a series of prints from 1743, though some believe it to have hung there long before this.

South of the Berlina, the shrine perched on top of a stone column, known as the Colonna del Mercato, is a copy. The figures are those of the Virgin Mary, St Peter, St Zeno and St Christopher. Erected in1401, the original is now in the Museo di Castelvecchio.

The newly restored Domus Mercatorum, on the corner of piazetta XIV Novembre, was built in 1301, replacing a previous wooden structure. It was the headquarters for the trade and commerce authorities of the Comune. Behind here stood the tightly packed houses of the Jewish ghetto, demolished at the beginning of the 20th century ostensibly because it was considered unhealthy.

Opposite the Domus Mercatorum, the Palazzo del Comune, also known as the Palazzo della Ragione, was built in 1193, though the neo-classical façade by Giuseppe Barbieri was not added until 1810. The building, which encloses the cortile Mercato Vecchio , was the seat of power for the 12th-century Comune which ruled the city, and to this day, is still home to the city’s magistrates. It was built around the slightly earlier Torre dei Lamberti , the tallest tower in the city, which now rises out of it.

Known by Veronesi as piazza Dante, quiet piazza dei Signori is the noble opposite to piazza Erbe’s proletarian style, a celebration not of commerce and the market, but of power and of poets, and in particular of the Scaligeri family, rulers of the city in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The piazza’s most attractive building, and the best place from where to sit and watch the daily comings and goings, is the Renaissance Loggia del Consiglio (built between 1476 and 1492 by Fra’ Giocondo) on the northwest side. With four elegant mullioned windows and frescoes above a loggia below, the building was built as a meeting place for the city’s government. The statues along the top, supposed to be Veronesi from classical times are, from left to right, Vitruvius, Catullus, Pliny the Elder, Emilio Macro and Cornelius Nepos. It is now thought, however, that Catullus was probably the only one born near the city.

On the side of the Palazzo del Comune which faces into piazza dei Signori are damaged coats of arms of Venetian governors and a stone face, through whose mouth people of the city were encouraged to post denouncements of their fellow citizens.

Also on this side of the piazza, both in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Tribunali (the cortile del Tribunale) and between the two palaces, you can see through glass to some of the excavations of Roman remains below. The Palazzo dei Tribunali, complete with its tower, was first built as home to Cansignorio della Scala on top of what had already been a Scaligeri palace – that of Alberto della Scala. Later the building was headquarters of the Venetian rulers of the city, hence its other name, Palazzo del Capitano.

Dante’s connection to the piazza is that he was a guest of the della Scala family in the Palazzo Cangrande (now the Prefettura) at the end of the piazza at the beginning of the 14th century. The portal is the work of influential 16th-century Veronese architect Sanmicheli. The building was heavily renovated in the 1930s, though the cool loggia is largely original. A plaque here announces the result of the 1866 plebiscite, which decided on the unification of Italy as a constitutional monarchy.

Ugo Zannoni’s statue of Dante himself in the centre of the piazza is a relatively recent addition, added in 1865.

Members of the Società Belle Arti Verona exhibit in a few rooms off the southwest corner of the piazza in the Palazzo del Comune. Artists, who rotate every two weeks, tend to be rather conservative. The gallery space is open 1000-1200, 1600-1930 and is free.

Home to the famous Scala della Ragione, the cortile Mercato Vecchio is used on occasions for summer concerts and dance. The Renaissance Scala della Ragione, built between 1446 and 1452, also had a loggia construction above it until 19th-century ‘restoration’.

cortile del Tribunale, piazza Viviani, T 045 8007490, http://www.comune.verona.it/scaviscaligeri Opening times and prices change according to exhibitions.

The mish-mash of ancient excavated remains under piazza Viviani and the cortile del Tribunale in the very centre of old Verona is the spectacular, if slightly damp, setting for excellent large-scale photography exhibitions. Recent exhibitions have included Fulvio Roiter and Sandro Santioli.

The excavations themselves include Roman sewers which were in use until the 20th century, Roman mosaics, graves from the Middle Ages and façades from 5th-century houses. A paved Roman road runs directly under modern via Dante above.

Cortile Mercato Vecchio, T 045 8032726. Mon 1330-1930, Tue-Sun 0930-1930. E2.50 by lift, E1.50 on foot.

Towering 83 m above the central piazzas of the city, the Torre dei Lamberti is one of the only remaining towers of around seventy that once traced the city skyline. Built partly for family prestige, partly for defence, these towers were found in many Italian cities. The octagonal Renaissance belfry at the top of the Torre dei Lamberti was added to the original 12th-century structure in 1464. 368 steps, or a lift, take you to the top, higher than any other building in the centre of the city, with wonderful views down to the piazzas and the rest of the city spread out below. The Marangona bell at the top was used as a fire alarm, while the Rengo bell announced council meetings in the Palazzo del Comune downstairs.

via Arche Scaligeri, T 045 8032726.

Inside a suitably ornate high wrought iron enclosure, the white Gothic tombs of the della Scala rulers of the city sit at the end of piazza dei Signori like enormous over-worked wedding cakes, topped with statues, each one more grandiosely decorative than the last. The fencing repeats the ladder motif which was the family’s emblem (scala means ladder) and which can still be seen all over the city, emphasizing the hold the memory of the family still has over Verona. Outside the enclosed area is the most famous tomb of all, the arca di Cangrande I, from 1335 (Cangrande means ‘Big Dog’). The equestrian statue is a copy, however, the original having been moved to the Museo di Castelvecchio for safe-keeping. Next to it, the other equestrian statue is that on the arca di Mastino II (meaning ‘Mastiff’), from 1350, and possibly sculpted by the same artist. The arca di Cansignorio (’Lord Dog’), dating from 1375, the most excessive of all, also has an equestrian statue and includes six guarding warriors.

Nearby, at 2-4 via Arche Scaligeri is the supposed Casa di Romeo. The myth here has a slightly more historical basis in that a family by the name of Montecchi (Montague in Shakespeare’s play) certainly lived here in the 14th century. The house is not open to the public though you can eat in the restaurant.

via Arche Scaligeri, T 045 595508. Mon-Sun 0730-1230, 1530-1900. Free.

A part of the Scaligeri complex of palaces and tombs, and with the equestrian figure of Cangrande above its door, Santa Maria Antica was the chapel of the Della Scala family. Romanesque in style, it was rebuilt in the 12th century on top of an older Longobard church. It is built with pale stone, punctuated by a few obligatory red-brick stripes, and has a cream and pink marble floor onto which light streams almost exclusively through a window above the door, silhouetting Cangrande behind. Small, simple and serious in format, with a nave and two aisles divided by columns, it is also beautiful and atmospheric.

23 via Cappello, T 045 8034303. Mon 1330-1930, Tue-Sun 0830-1930. Entrance to the house, E3.10, courtyard free.

An extraordinary indictment of modern tourism but also strangely magnetic, Juliet’s (supposed) house is, for the most part, a heaving mass of day-trippers who throng in and out of the gates, stand around in the courtyard taking photos of the famous balcony (added to the building in the 1930s), fondle the right breast of the statue of Juliet in the hope of better luck than she had, and troop out again, leaving another layer of sentimental graffiti on the multicoloured walls. All this is done without much of an apparent sense of irony, or of the absurdity of it all. Perhaps it is this that makes the place seem less cynical, less manipulative: the ridiculous credulity of it all is somehow endearing.

Juliet, of course, was a fictional character . The Capulet family may similarly have been made up – there are no records of a Capuleti family existing in Verona at that time. So, at some point in the past, somebody decided that the Cappello family should stand in for them, and their house was made into a shrine to a fictional romance.

The inside of the house has been done up with commendable restraint and good taste. There are no cartoon postcards here, and surprisingly few people, the hordes seemingly happy for the most part to stay below and shout up at you when you step out onto the balcony. This adoration aside, it’s worth a visit just to see the inside of a smart 14th-century townhouse faithfully recreated. There are fragments of frescoes by various painters including Veronese and Bernardino India, grand rooms, and costumes and the bed from Zeffirelli’s 1968 film.

via Cappello.

Further down via Cappello from the Casa di Giulietta, the remains of one of the city’s original (1st century AD) Roman gates have been added to, but the original form is still standing and clearly visible. At the southern edge of the Roman city, the gate had two large towers on either side. Sunk down into the road beside are excavations of other parts of the gateway, including the western tower.

One of the best preserved and most atmospheric of Verona’s medieval streets, Sottoriva has a portico down one side and many 12th- and 13th-century buildings. Until changes that were made to the city after the 1882 flood, this was one of the places that was inundated most often. Right beside the river the street is at a low level (the name literally means below the bank). Once the busy and notorious home to fishermen, merchants, millers and osterie, the street lost some of its raison d’etre when the river level was lowered and the mills closed. However, it retained some of its best bars and restaurants, and it now has several of Verona’s best nightspots, some good restaurants and some interesting shops and galleries.

piazza Sant’Anastasia, T 045 592813 Mon-Sat 0930-1800, Sun 1300-1800. E2, E5 for combined ticket for five main churches.

Verona’s largest church is a vast and cavernous Gothic building. It contains the city’s most reproduced work of art in Pisanello’s 1438 weathered but magical fresco of St George and the Princess (entitled San Giorgio e la principessa di Trebisonda), albeit in an inaccessible position on the arch high above the Cappella Pellegrini to the right of the altar. Altichiero’s fresco in the Cappella Cavalli is similarly impressive, and gives a good idea of how the city would have looked in the 1380s when it was painted, towards the end of the Scaligeri family dynasty. Built between 1290 and 1320 by Dominicans, the church is actually dedicated to a martyred Veronese Dominican friar, St Pietro, though the name has never stuck and the church is universally known by the name of a pre-existing church which stood on the same site. The campanile was not completed until 1434 and the upper part of the façade remains unfinished. The interior is composed of a nave and two aisles divided by enormous red marble pillars with Gothic capitals. The two holy water fonts at the back of the church are supported by marble statues of hunchbacks (gobbi). The one on the left as you enter was carved by Gabriele, father of the painter Veronese, in 1495. The second, in two-coloured marble, by Paolo Orefice, was added in 1591.

4 vicolo Volto Due Mori, corso Sant' Anastasia, T 045 8001903. Tue-Fri 0900-1900, Sat and Sun 0900-2000. Prices vary according to exhibitions.

Verona’s modern art museum is in the grand Palazzo Forti, a grand 13th-century building in which Napoleon once stayed. The old building has been sympathetically but strikingly converted into a modern gallery. The permanent collection on the ground floor includes some excellent international works as well as some local art of less obvious quality. Highlights include a great Spencer Tunick photo of nudes in New York (9th Street and First Avenue – NYC 2), Jane Phaff’s energetic diptych Fremdkörper, Botto and Bruno’s industrial photo montage Red Sky and a small bulbous Louise Bourgeois piece, Fallen Woman. Upstairs, a great exhibition space with high, occasionally patterned, ceilings is used for temporary exhibitions. In recent times these have included Kandinsky, Munch, Dadaism and Virginia Ferrari, a Verona-born sculptor, 12 of whose pieces were also placed in high-profile locations around the city.

piazza Duomo, T 045 592813. Mon-Sat 0930-1800, Sun 1300-1800. E2, E5 for combined ticket for five main churches.

Though sometimes overshadowed by the city’s other spectacular churches, Verona’s cathedral has a beautiful façade, a stunning Titian painting, a Sanmicheli-designed belltower, griffins and plenty of historical interest.

The building was initially designed by architect Nicolò in the 12th century, after the 1117 earthquake had destroyed the 8th-century cathedral. Despite subsequent Gothic alterations, it is Nicolò’s features on and around the main double porch and canopy which remain particularly striking. An upper arch is supported by a lower one, whose pillars rest on two marble griffins, their backs shiny from having been mounted by 860 years of Veronese children. Ornate and unusually descriptive stone reliefs around the door include the warriors Orlando (on the left) and Oliviero, better known as Roland and Oliver. The lunette above the door features a virgin and child, the annunciation to the shepherds and the adoration of the magi.

Equally striking are the stone sculptures over the side entrance: on one side Jonah is swallowed by a sea-monster, while on the other a dog bites a lion. These predate Nicolò’s reconstructions.

Inside, Titian’s Assumption in the Cappella Cartolari-Nichesola, the first on the left, is quite clearly the highlight. Poorly executed frescoes in the Cappella de Abazia-Lazzari next to it serve only to show just how good Titian’s painting is. Framed by a columned altar by Sansovino, Titian’s work is electric with human reaction. Titian aside, the most interesting works of art are Giovanni Maria Falconetto’s 1503 paintings on four wooden panels in the Cappella Calcasol, illustrating the life of Christ.

Michele Sanmicheli’s influence on the Duomo in the 16th century included designing the circular apse, the semicircular choir screen and the campanile. The latter, however, built on a 12th-century base, was not completed at the time – the top section was only added in 1913.

A door below the organ leads to the separate church of Sant’Elena, via a 12th-century loggia. Sant’Elena is uninspiring in itself, except that various parts of its floor are glass-covered, allowing views through to remains of a 4th-century Paleo-Christian structure, whose nave Sant’Elena more or less follows. When this first church was partially destroyed by fire at the end of the 6th century, it was replaced by a second basilica, mostly on the site of the present-day cloister. These Paleo-Christian structures were themselves built on pre-existing Roman remains, probably thermal baths and a temple to Minerva.

To reach the peaceful double-pillared cloisters of Sant'Elena you need to exit the Duomo and go around to the left of the front of the building.

While those in “inappropriate dress” will not be admitted, if you’re lucky the ticket desk may have clothes to lend you to cover knees and shoulders, which seem to be the offending parts.

The Biblioteca Capitolare (piazza Duomo 13, T 045 596516, visits by appointment only) is a library holding various ancient and rare manuscripts. Founded in the 4th century, it was used by both Dante and Petrarch.

piazza Duomo, T 045 592813. Sat 1000-1300, Sun 1430-1800, closed Mon-Fri. E2.

In rooms off the cloisters of Sant'Elena , the Museo Canonicale contains a collection once largely in the custody of various churches around the city – many of which no longer exist – but now in the possession of the Duomo. The Renaissance room is the most interesting, with paintings by Morone, Caroto and Giolfino among others. Downstairs there are some Roman artefacts, mostly fragments, but including a beautiful glass engraved with figures.

via Santo Mamaso 2/a, T 045 8032484. Tue-Fri 1600-1900, Sat-Sun 1030-1200, 1600-1900. E5.

In the beautiful 15th-century Palazzo Miniscalchi, with faded frescoes and elaborate Gothic arched windows, is an odd collection of antique furniture, Renaissance drawings, Roman glassware and a 19th-century reconstruction of a 16th-century suit of armour. In the grand Sala della Bifone, with an impressive 18th-century inlaid wooden box, sunlight streams in through the windows at the front of the house. The highlight, however, is probably the drawings, notably those by Brusasorci, Veronese and Guido Reni.

Following the route of the Roman decumanus maximus west from piazza Erbe, corso Porta Borsari is one of Verona’s most attractive streets and ends with one of its most impressive Roman remains, the remarkably intact gateway of Porta Borsari. Lined with shops and cafés, which tend to be less smart and have a little more character than those on via Mazzini, its prime rival for top shopping street, corso Porta Borsari is also more used by Veronesi. Halfway along on the northern side is the small Romanesque church of San Giovanni in Foro, with a newly-restored façade.

Porta Borsari itself is a three-tiered structure of arches, built in the 1st century AD as the monumental entrance to the city on the east-west Postumian way, and thus the most important. The design was much admired in the Renaissance, and motifs were borrowed by architects such as Sanmicheli. Originally the gate would have been a three-dimensional building – all that remains today is the western façade. The name, almost certainly a medieval invention, comes from the word bursarii, meaning those who collected taxes at the gates. The original Roman name was Porta di Giove, Gate of Jupiter.

Via Mazzini, now probably Verona’s most famous street, and certainly its richest, was once dirty and unpaved, unimportant and unloved. Only with the creation and subsequent rise in importance of piazza Bra from the 16th century onwards did the street begin to take on something of its current aspect.

Nowadays it is one of Italy’s smartest shopping streets, packed with people strolling up and down its shiny marble length from piazza Erbe at one end to piazza Bra at the other. It has also become something of a stage for the selling of fake handbags and black market CDs, and teams of men offering tourists the chance to “find the coin” in order to double their money. These activities have not gone down well with shopkeepers on via Mazzini, who feel the tone of their street is being lowered and have threatened to shut up their shops in protest.

Travel Guides | Verona | Sub Regions | Verona - Centro storico
		Flights Cheap flights to any destination worldwide click here		Car Rental Compare prices for worldwide car rental click here		Hotels Lowest prices on over 60,000 hotels worldwide click here		Travel Insurance Compare Travel Insurance prices click here