The Renaissance, apart from its literature and artistic meaning, may also be characterized by a crescendo of geographical curiosity induced by the discovery of new lands. After centuries, the Europeans start to have access to new seas, while until then they have maintained contact with Asia exclusively by land, as the Arab merchants, skilled in nav...
READ MOREAfter months of waiting, the closing has finally arrived. Today begins the Joe Tacopina era in Ferrara. After 8 years and a centered promotion in the top flight, the Colombarini family has defined the sale of the company to the Italian-American lawyer. In the morning the legal process was completed in Ferrara at the Leoni notary office in via Pales...
READ MORE“Gran Bosco della Mesola” National Reserve is located in the province of Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, and it represents on of the last and best conserved ancient lowland woods, which were typical of the Po valley and a memory of the forests on the Adriatic coast, which disappeared in the last century. It has a surface of 1,058 hectares and it is the wi...
READ MOREThey say that all roads to lead to Rome. And, as it turns out, one of the best roads is also close to Rome. I’m talking about the Via Emilia, the extraordinary ancient route that ran in almost a straight line from the coast to northern Italy, from modern-day Rimini to Piacenza. Not only did countless travellers walk along its gravel path, but they...
READ MOREIt was the movie that added sex appeal to the gritty neorealist film period and made a star out of actress Silvana Mangano. "Riso Amaro" ("Bitter Rice"), featured women wearing daring shorts with ripped stockings tramping through water, girl-on-girl mud-wrestling, and Mangano's ample cleavage in everything from tight t-shirts to a negligee. The fil...
READ MOREA UNESCO World Heritage site, the city of Ferrara in Emilia Romagna is worth visiting for plenty of reasons – not least of which is its peculiarly shaped coppia ferrarese bread. Coppia (ciupeta in dialect) means "couple," and the bread is made by cutting two strips from the dough, which are then rolled between the palms of one's hands so that they'...
READ MOREThe signs of the Renaissance are everywhere in Italy. Grand piazzas and palazzos. Metal-spiked doors. Looming archways. And, of course, all that ever-present art in the churches and galleries. But in one city, you also get a taste of the Renaissance every time you enter a restaurant. Ferrara, in the northern region of Emilia Romagna, was once home...
READ MOREThe palio is a form of entertainment dating back to medieval times. Even today, competitions between the districts are celebrated in the folkloristic festivals of the towns of Italy. In addition to the Palio di Siena, the most famous, in our peninsula we find various events that bring us back to the traditional challenges of the past. In Italy the...
READ MOREThe history of Ferrara’s sgraffito ceramics traces its origins to early medieval artefacts from China and the vast areas of the Iranian Plateau, which arrived on Italian soil through maritime trade and commerce with the Orient. The first works excavated by medieval archaeologists in Ferrara are dated no earlier than the thirteenth century and were...
READ MOREDURING THE LATE 15TH CENTURY, the city of Ferrara was undergoing a rapid period of growth. To accommodate this growth, Duke Ercole d’Este decided to demolish the medieval northern walls to enlarge the town. This later became known as the Erculean Addition, a popular form of Rennassiance urban planning. At the intersection of the two main roads, d’E...
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