Portico del Pavaglione, Bologna: The Arcade Along Piazza Maggiore

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 bookshops, boutiques, and cafés that have occupied these arches in various forms since the 15th century. Most people pass through it without knowing its name. That seems worth correcting.

The name comes from pavaglione, an old term for the silk cocoon pavilion — from the 16th century onwards, this stretch hosted the silk market that supplied merchants across northern Italy. Vignola built the Palazzo dei Banchi facade in 1565–68 partly to give Piazza Maggiore a unified architectural face, and partly to hide the chaotic market stalls behind a dignified colonnade. The silk is long gone; the arches remain, now carrying the weight of a UNESCO World Heritage designation that Bologna’s porticoes received in 2021.

Walk it slowly and you notice things that get missed at pace. The floor is Verona red stone — look down and you’ll find fossil shells and ammonites embedded in the slabs, hundreds of millions of years old underfoot. The arches above are wide and high by Bologna’s standards, giving the Pavaglione a more open feel than the narrower residential porticoes in the university quarter. On one side, through gaps between the buildings, you catch glimpses of the Quadrilatero — the knot of food market streets that still function as they have for centuries. On the other, the flank of San Petronio.

Halfway along, the Libreria Nanni occupies one of the arcade units — a proper independent bookshop that has been here long enough to feel permanent. Past the Archiginnasio end, the Galleria Cavour branches off to the left: a covered 1950s shopping gallery with high-end fashion brands, worth stepping into for the architecture if not the prices. The Archiginnasio itself — Bologna’s original university building, now a public library — faces onto Piazza Galvani at the southern end. Its courtyard, covered in crests of former students and professors, is free to enter and worth five minutes.

The Pavaglione is part of the broader network of porticoes of Bologna that total around 40 kilometres in the historic centre. The UNESCO inscription recognises them collectively — not as monuments to be preserved behind glass, but as living infrastructure that shapes how the city is used every day. Rain or shine, the city moves under cover. It’s one of the things that makes Bologna feel genuinely different from other Italian cities, and the Pavaglione is the most central and accessible stretch to start with.

If you want to understand more about Bologna’s layers of history and culture, the art exhibitions and events that periodically fill the arcades and nearby institutions are a good way in. The food starts a few metres away in the Quadrilatero — the Pavaglione is the architectural version of the same logic: something practical that became, over centuries, something worth paying attention to.

See where the food actually comes from.
The Emilia Delizia food tour takes you inside working Parmigiano, balsamic, and ham producers — rated 4.9 stars on TripAdvisor.