Arezzo

Arezzo

Arezzo

“Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.” — Francesco Petrarca.

De remediis utriusque fortunae (1354), Book II

Arezzo (Italian pronunciation: [aˈrettso]) is a city and comune in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Florence at an elevation of 296 metres (971 ft) above sea level. It is also 30 km west of Città di Castello.

Arezzo is set on a steep hill rising from the floodplain of the River Arno. In the upper part of the town are the cathedral, the town hall and the Medici Fortress (Fortezza Medicea), from which the main streets branch off towards the lower part as far as the gates. The upper part of the town maintains its medieval appearance despite the addition of later structures. 

Amongst many notable attractions or monuments it’s worthy to mention: 

Piazza Grande. The Piazza Grande is the most noteworthy medieval square in the city, opening behind the 13th century Romanesque apse of Santa Maria della Pieve. Once the main marketplace of the city, it is currently the site of the Giostra del Saracino (“Joust of the Saracen”). It has a sloping pavement in red brick with limestone geometrical lines. 

Santa Maria della Pieve. The most striking feature of this Romanesque church is the massive, square-planned bell tower with double orders of mullioned windows. The church was built in the 12th century over a pre-existing Palaeo-Christian edifice, and was renovated a century later with the addition of the characteristic façade made of loggias with small arches surmounted by all different-styled columns. 

Roman amphitheatre and museum.

Palazzo dei Priori, erected in 1333, has been the seat of the city’s magistratures until today. The square tower is from 1337.

Medici Fortress (Fortezza Medicea), designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and completed in 1538–1560. It was partly dismantled by the French in the early 19th century.

Palazzo Pretorio, which was seat of the People’s Captain until 1290. Only one of the two original towers remains.

House of Petrarch (Casa del Petrarca).

Casa Vasari (in Via XX Settembre) an older house rebuilt in 1547 by Giorgio Vasari and frescoed by him; now open as a museum, 

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

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Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)

Bologna

Bologna

Bologna

“Surge nel chiaro inverno la fosca turrita Bologna,
e il colle sopra bianco di neve ride.
È l’ora soave che il sol morituro saluta
le torri e ’l tempio, divo Petronio, tuo”
— Giosuè Carducci, Nella Piazza di San Petronio.

Bologna is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy, at the heart of a metropolitan area of about one million people.

Of Etruscan origin, the city has been a major urban centre for centuries, first under the Etruscans, then under the Romans (Bononia), then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality and signoria, when it was among the largest European cities by population. Famous for its towers, churches and lengthy porticoes, Bologna has a well-preserved historical centre, thanks to a careful restoration and conservation policy which began at the end of the 1970s. Home to the oldest university in the world the University of Bologna, established in AD 1088, the city has a large student population that gives it a cosmopolitan character. In 2000 it was declared European capital of culture and in 2006, a UNESCO “City of Music” and became part of the Creative Cities Network.

No more than twenty medieval defensive towers remain out of up to 180 that were built in the 12th and 13th centuries before the arrival of unified civic government. The most famous of the towers of Bologna are the central “Due Torri” (Asinelli and Garisenda), whose iconic leaning forms provide a popular symbol of the town.

The Portico di San Luca is possibly the world’s longest. It connects Porta Saragozza (one of the twelve gates of the ancient walls built in the Middle Ages, which circled a 7.5 km (4.7 mi) part of the city) with the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, a church begun in 1723 on the site of an 11th-century edifice which had already been enlarged in the 14th century, prominently located on a hill (289 metres (948 feet)) overlooking the town, which is one of Bologna’s main landmarks. The windy 666 vault arcades, almost four kilometres (3,796 m or 12,454 ft) long, effectively links San Luca, as the church is commonly called, to the city centre.

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

Some content taken from Wikipedia (see attribution at the bottom of the post/page).
Some graphics for the home page and pages header taken from Pixabay.

If you would like to reuse any of my pictures, please contact me at info@sguidetti.net

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Stefano Guidetti

Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)

Lucca

Lucca

Lucca

“A beutiful city completely surrounded by intact renaissance-era city walls. You can’t miss a visit.” — Anonymous author.

Lucca is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio, in a fertile plain near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital of the Province of Lucca. It is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls.

The walls encircling the old town remain intact, even as the city expanded and modernized, unusual for cities in the region. Initially built as a defensive rampart, once the walls lost their military importance they became a pedestrian promenade, the Passeggiata delle Mura Urbane, a street atop the walls linking the bastions. It passes through the Bastions of Santa Croce, San Frediano, San Martino, San Pietro/Battisti, San Salvatore, La Libertà/Cairoli, San Regolo, San Colombano, Santa Maria, San Paolino/Catalani, and San Donato; and over the gates (Porte): San Donato, Santa Maria, San Jocopo, Elisa, San Pietro, and Sant’Anna. Each of the four principal sides of the structure is lined with a different tree species than the others.

The walled city is encircled by Piazzale Boccherini, Viale Lazzaro Papi, Viale Carlo Del Prete, Piazzale Martiri della Libertà, Via Batoni, Viale Agostino Marti, Viale G. Marconi (vide Guglielmo Marconi), Piazza Don A. Mei, Viale Pacini, Viale Giusti, Piazza Curtatone, Piazzale Ricasoli, Viale Ricasoli, Piazza Risorgimento (vide Risorgimento), and Viale Giosuè Carducci.

The town includes a number of public squares, most notably the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, site of ancient Roman amphitheater; but also Piazzale Verdi; Piazza Napoleone’ and Piazza San Michele.

Lucca is the birthplace of composers Giacomo Puccini (La Bohème and Madama Butterfly).

Lucca hosts a number of events. The most famous are the annual Lucca Summer Festival which features live shows of international singers and music bandsand the annual Lucca Comics and Games festival, Europe’s largest festival for comics, movies, games and related subjects.

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

Some content taken from Wikipedia (see attribution at the bottom of the post/page).
Some graphics for the home page and pages header taken from Pixabay.

If you would like to reuse any of my pictures, please contact me at info@sguidetti.net

On this site we do not use profiling cookies or third parties cookies.
We do, however, use technical cookies functional to to the fruition of this site.

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About me

Stefano Guidetti

Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)

Mantova

Mantova

Mantova

“Somewhere, in that totality known as the universe, is a galaxy called the Milky Way. Tucked into the corner of that galaxy is a planet named Earth. On that planet is a city called Mantua. Go straight ahead, past the fountain, turn right, then left, and right again. You’ll find yourself walking along the water, listening, as a man sings of his beloved’s unfaithful heart. And even the fish begin to weep. Quando La Donna è Mobile”. — The Doctor (ST:VOY).

Mantua (Italian: Mantova) is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.

In 2016, Mantua became Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, Mantua was the European Capital of Gastronomy, included in the Eastern Lombardy District (together with the cities of Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona).

In 2007, Mantua’s centro storico (old town) and Sabbioneta were declared by UNESCO to be a World Heritage Site. Mantua’s historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family has made it one of the main artistic, cultural, and especially musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole. Mantua is noted for its significant role in the history of opera; the city is also known for its architectural treasures and artifacts, elegant palaces, and the medieval and Renaissance cityscape. It is the place where the composer Monteverdi premiered his opera L’Orfeo and where Romeo was banished in Shakespeare‘s play Romeo and Juliet. It is the nearest town to the birthplace of the Roman poet Virgil, who was commemorated by a statue at the lakeside park “Piazza Virgiliana”.

Mantua is surrounded on three sides by artificial lakes, created during the 12th century, as the city’s defence system. These lakes receive water from the Mincio River, a tributary of the Po River which descends from Lake Garda. The three lakes are called Lago Superiore, Lago di Mezzo, and Lago Inferiore (“Upper”, “Middle”, and “Lower” Lakes, respectively). A fourth lake, Lake Pajolo, which once served as a defensive water ring around the city, dried up at the end of the 18th century.

The area and its environs are important not only in naturalistic terms, but also anthropologically and historically; research has highlighted a number of human settlements scattered between Barche di Solferino and Bande di Cavriana, Castellaro and Isolone del Mincio. These dated, without interruption, from Neolithic times (5th–4th millennium BC) to the Bronze Age (2nd–1st millennium BC) and the Gallic phases (2nd–1st centuries BC), and ended with Roman residential settlements, which could be traced to the 3rd century AD.

In 2017, Legambiente ranked Mantua as the best Italian city for the quality of the life and environment.

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

Some content taken from Wikipedia (see attribution at the bottom of the post/page).
Some graphics for the home page and pages header taken from Pixabay.

If you would like to reuse any of my pictures, please contact me at info@sguidetti.net

On this site we do not use profiling cookies or third parties cookies.
We do, however, use technical cookies functional to to the fruition of this site.

Privacy Policy

About me

Stefano Guidetti

Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)

Milan

Milan

Milan

“Milan is a true metropolis: strong and fearless but welcoming, too. Little by little, I came to realize that I could become someone here.” — Giorgio Armani.

Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,372,810 while its metropolitan area has a population of 3,242,820. Its continuously built-up urban area (that stretches beyond the boundaries of the Metropolitan City of Milan) has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres (730 square miles). The wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age.

Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research and tourism. Its business district hosts Italy’s stock exchange and the headquarters of national and international banks and companies. In terms of GDP, it has the third-largest economy among European cities after Paris and London, but the fastest in growth among the three, and is the wealthiest among European non-capital cities. Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and one of the “Four Motors for Europe“.

The city has been recognized as the world’s fashion and the design capital thanks to several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are currently among the world’s biggest in terms of revenue, visitors and growth. It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students. Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that boast some of the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci. The city is served by a large number of luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world by Michelin Guide.

 

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

Some content taken from Wikipedia (see attribution at the bottom of the post/page).
Some graphics for the home page and pages header taken from Pixabay.

If you would like to reuse any of my pictures, please contact me at info@sguidetti.net

On this site we do not use profiling cookies or third parties cookies.
We do, however, use technical cookies functional to to the fruition of this site.

Privacy Policy

About me

Stefano Guidetti

Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)

Florence

Florence

Florence

“And when I thought of Florence, it was like a miracle city embalmed and like a corolla, because it was called the city of lilies and its cathedral, St. Mary of the Flowers.” — Marcel ProustSwann’s Way.

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.

Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called “the Athens of the Middle Ages”. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.

The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and the Historic Centre of Florence was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence’s artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

source: Wikipedia

All pictures and images on this site (except where explicitly stated) are ©2024 Stefano Guidetti.

Some content taken from Wikipedia (see attribution at the bottom of the post/page).
Some graphics for the home page and pages header taken from Pixabay.

If you would like to reuse any of my pictures, please contact me at info@sguidetti.net

On this site we do not use profiling cookies or third parties cookies.
We do, however, use technical cookies functional to to the fruition of this site.

Privacy Policy

About me

Stefano Guidetti

Very picky IT Manager, Web Developer, Web Designer and (very) amateur photographer.
Currently employed in the educational field, working for the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

(please note: social profiles are in Italian language only)