Bologna

The Portico di San Luca runs for 3.5 kilometres and 666 arches from the Arco del Meloncello at the edge of the city up the hill to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. It was built between 1674 and 1793 to protect the annual religious procession that carries the Madonna’s icon down to […]

Palazzo Pepoli on Via Castiglione houses the Museum of the History of Bologna — 2,500 square metres of exhibition space tracing Bologna’s fascinating history from its Etruscan origins as Felsina through the Roman period, the medieval university, the Renaissance, and into the modern city. The building itself is part of the experience: a 14th-century palazzo

Bologna’s medieval walls no longer exist in any continuous form — most were demolished in the 19th and early 20th centuries to make way for the viali, the ring roads that follow their line. What survives are the gates: twelve of them, built as part of the outermost and final circuit of walls constructed between

The Pavaglione runs for about 140 metres along the eastern edge of Piazza Maggiore, under the Renaissance arcades of Palazzo dei Banchi, before opening onto Piazza Galvani and the Archiginnasio. It is one of the most-walked stretches in Bologna — a natural corridor between the main square and the university quarter, the portico lined with