Bologna

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Geo: 44.4959, 11.3435

Walking tour of Bologna this morning, in glorious weather again. It's a lively city of 1M, with a student population of another 100,000 at the university. Bologna University is the first in Europe, dating from 1088. The city is also known for its great culinary traditions - pasta of all types; its left-wing political orientation; its 40km of covered footpaths (porticos) and its orangey/red coloured walls and roofs.

Due to political one up-manship, Bologna's Cathedral (the Bishop's seat) is not the biggest church in Bologna. The city built a bigger one in the 14th century (Church of San Petronio - one of Christendom's largest) and it was consecrated a basilica in 1954. Controversially this basilica contains a 1410 fresco depicting scenes from Dante's Hell, one of which shows Mohammed (named in an inscription) being tormented by the Devil. Muslims see this as a great blasphemy and extremists have threatened violence. Consequently there is a permanent security presence at the church.

We had a cooking demonstration in the afternoon where the chef would talk for 5 min in Italian, and we'd get a 10 second translation! Still, I'd never watched pasta hand-made and rolled before. Then apertivos with mortadella and parmigiana, plus dinner at the hotel. (Which was nowhere near as good as at the da Nello restaurant the previous night.)

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Photos

That's a deli!
These shops include pre-made pasta dishes to go. The hand-rolled pasta is coarser and preferred to the smooth pasta from machine rolling. The processed meat "baloney" comes from here but they call it "Mortadella".

Bologna's Two Towers
In many Italian cities, rich medieval families built towers as a demonstration of their wealth and power. And as a sanctuary in case of possible conflict. These towers were built more or less the same height but when the left one started leaning alarmingly, its top 10m was demolished. A couple of hundred years later the second tower had another 25m built on to it to improve its lookout function.

Churches of Santo Stefano
Starting from the 5th century AD a succession of small, connected churches were built on this site; seven in all. They each had their own distinctive appeal.

Bologna University Anatomical Theatre
For a long time the Church banned the dissection of cadavers. Finally, in the 16th century the research was tolerated and this magnificent room was built - the second after Padua University.

Basilica de San Domenico
I was impressed by the leader of the Dominican Order's tomb, shown here in a side chapel of the church.

St Domenico's Sarcophagus
The intricate sculpture was exquisite. Michelangelo sculpted three of the figures. On the wall behind this was an x-ray picture showing a jumble of bones that looked like a complete skeleton. A little macabre!

Our jolly dinner table
Sel, Tina, Rick, Jim, Lani, Susan, Stan, Debbie and Rob. The boys at the back table: Jim, Rick, Dan and Lawrence. With Anne walking past.

Comments

[Dwayne Oslund]

My college fraternity, Kappa Sigma, was established in 1869 and was based on an ancient secret order founded at Bologna University. Known in some accounts as "Kirjath Sepher", it is said to have been founded between 1395 and 1400 to protec
t students from robbery and assault by a corrupt city governor. Bologna is the oldest existing university in continuous operation. I hope you get to visit. Maybe I will too some day.

[Kerrie Lonn]

What a fabulous selection.

[Kerrie Lonn]

It is the inspiring beautiful detail that is universal and timeless. Good photos.

[robselclark]

There did not seem to be a discrete university campus. We did visit the library as well as the anatomy classroom. The many students gave the city a lively feel.