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Enlightenment scholars called Sabbioneta “the little Athens of the Po”, considering it as the true Renaissance “ideal city”, it is actually a “little Rome” created by the maecenas prince Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna on the model of ancient Roman cities. Vespasiano, being viceroy of Navarre, had already designed the citadel of Pamplona in Spain, and w...

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The urban structure of Barga has remained more or less that of the time of the Commune (12th-14th cent.), with a tangled network of streets running between the irregular buildings. One enters the village through Porta Reale and Via del Pretorio, crossed by narrow lanes and cart-roads. Past the first square is the Conservatorio di Sant’Elisabetta, a...

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The borgo of Cison di Valmarino is dominated by the Brandolini castle (today a luxury hotel), called in the middle ages Castrum Costae. The fortified complex (XII century) was transformed by Brandolini with the addition of the Renaissance wing and the building of the external walls and ramparts. It was Antonio Maria Brandolini, who died in 1530, to...

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The mountains press against Pacentro to the point of reducing its horizon, but in compensation they shelter the Borgo from the fury of the winds. The woods oxygenate the air and water gushes fresh water from the numerous springs of the Maiella. To the west, the sky over Pacentro widens, and the view sweeps over the Peligna Valley. At the summit of...

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Compiano stands on a rocky spur rising on the left bank of the Taro River, in Emilia Romagna but wedged between Liguria and Tuscany. The ancient village is dominated by a castle whose origins are uncertain: restoration work carried out in 1994, however, uncovered buildings dating back to before the eighth century A.D.. In later years the expansion...

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The town's urban development follows two lines: the Arab one "inside the walls," which is projected through the sixteenth century with the thickening of residences around the fortress of Zabut, and the seventeenth-eighteenth-century one "outside the walls," with the town hall acting as a hinge. The tour begins at the 19th-century L'Idea theater at...

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The urban center of Valvasone developed on the right bank of the Tagliamento River in the Friulian plain, near an ancient ford. We begin our visit from the Town Hall, a stately building with an 18th-century appearance that overlooks Piazza Mercato, incorporating earlier medieval structures. Opposite, Palazzo Martinuzzi-Dulio does not hide its Venet...

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The heart of the Borgo is the large central square dominated by the Town Hall, which was built with the civic tower in neo-gothic style in 1931. Next to it, the parish church of Santa Giustina, already attested in 1290, was renovated and elected a Collegiate Church by Pope Urban VIII in 1635. In the elegant cantoria located above the main entrance,...

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The grange (ancient barn) of Santa Maria del Preposito is the most important element of Summonte territory. It dates back to the tenth century and was sold in exchange to the abbey of Montevergine around 1174, from 1229 became the aggregation of the new Fontanelle farmhouse. The monastic structure has promoted the cultivation of chestnut, vine, oli...

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You can start your visit of the historical center from via Roma, where the municipal offices are housed in the convent of the Carmelite Fathers, finished in 1590. In the adjacent church of Madonna del Carmine (second half of the XVI century) the main altar carved in local leccese stone has columns, tunnels and basreliefs in late Baroque style and t...

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