Bologna: Vertigo medieval style

September 29, 3:58 PMItaly Culture & Travel ExaminerLucia Mauro

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Palazzo dei Notai, Bologna.

Just below our balcony at the discreet Art Hotel Orologio in Piazza Maggiore, Bologna's heavily turreted civic heart, voices of varying timbres lulled us to sleep and floated into our dreams. The next morning, the melodious stream of chatter awakened my husband Joe and me as if these conversations had continued in one unbreakable rhythmic chain. No traffic is permitted in this self-contained medieval square. So the only sounds that entered our chamber were human voices and the heavy tolling of bells. The present evaporated before our ears.

Bologna's Basilica di San Petronio.

From our stately maroon-and-gold room, I parted layers of heavy brocaded drapery to take in the regality of this Northern Italian city in the fertile Po River Valley region of Emilia-Romagna known for its delectable cuisine, art, scholarship, culture and overwhelming medieval majesty. Joe and I couldn't resist heading out on an all-day walking excursion in bright sunlight in a place capable of emitting a bustling vigor together with sublime calm. 

Asinelli and Garisenda Towers, Bologna.

We naturally began by enveloping ourselves in Piazza Maggiore, with Giambologna's muscular bronze sculpture of Neptune wielding his pitchfork toward the Palazzo dei Notai, opposite the Basilica di San Petronio (named for Bologna's 5th century bishop). The late 14th century church's façade, split horizontally, is a constant reminder of the structure's erratic funding. In short, it's unfinished. The lower half contains statuary set in elaborate niches, while the upper portion looks like someone peeled back the façade to reveal its corrugated cork-like shell. Its interior, however, contains slender pink columns that rise to meet delicate intersecting arches and buttresses. Svelte stained-glass windows are built into 22 ornate side chapels. The corrupt politics and ostentatious goals surrounding the Basilica di San Petronio allegedly spurred on Martin Luther to fight against the extravagance of Roman Catholicism at that time. Church and state are closely linked in this square, as evidenced by the presence of government buildings - the Palazzo del Podesta and Palazzo Re Enzo - encircling the basilica.

Bologna is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe - established in 1088. Alums include revered poet laureates Dante and Petrarch. Joe and I followed Via dell'Archiginnasio to the sharply curving Via Zamboni through to the University of Bologna locked in the shadows of multiple archways. Etched on one building's ruddy bricks are the words Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Pharmacology and Medicine (both human and veterinary). It's a sprawling, interconnected structure that includes endless rooms, libraries and courtyards. Nearby bookstores and coffee houses, crowded with international students (some lingering outside against their motorbikes), mingled acute intellectual stimulation with stylish flirtation. Classical music and opera arias poured out of the university's music rooms.

Art and science ultimately come together up the street at the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna's exquisite art museum housing works by Perugino and Raphael, and the Museum of Human Anatomy. The latter was established as an anatomy theater in 1742 and today contains what might be considered gruesome wax models. But these graphic sculptures of the muscles, nerves and organs beneath our skin were crucial teaching tools at the university's medical school into the 19th century.

At the immense Museo Civico Medioevale, we observed artifacts from ancient Roman sarcophagi to medieval ecclesiastical sculptures, evident in the statues of the Virgin Mary wearing what I call latticework Guineverean crowns. Most arresting is the futuristic statue of Pope Boniface VIII made of gold-plated copper on wood by goldsmith Manno Bandini in 1301. More spaceman than man of the cloth, it could have been constructed by George Lucas. A blackened egg-shaped head is topped with a pointy alien cap. The pope's sculpted body is wrapped in gold robes, as his two elongated black fingers bestow a blessing on the nearby gargoyles. His sleeves, though, are fashioned out of coiled copper rings reminiscent of the Lost in Space robot's dryer-filter arms. Back to the future indeed.

A city bursting with towers and citadels, Bologna is medieval pageantry personified. As we explored on foot, I began to imagine knights jousting on robust steeds and velvet-robed scholars scampering across the Biblioteca Nazionale's frescoed courtyard. I could almost feel the sting of chainmail against my skin or the delicate silk of a damsel's wimple blowing in the soft breezes.

How appropriate, then, to come upon two towers (only a few of the remaining fortifications that once numbered more than 200 and were erected by the powerful ruling families of the time). Their shapes seemed to change depending on where we were standing. At one point, they appeared to intersect; another moment, they became perpendicular. The Asinelli and Garisenda towers, as they are called, are sandwiched between the 17th century Chiesa di San Bartolomeo, with its blue-green copper dome. These three structures also looked to be enmeshed in a confusing tangle of streetcar wires at the dangerous intersection of Santo Stefano, Maggiore and San Vitale. They're in the vicinity of a cluster of four 11th century churches collectively known as the Abbey of St. Stephen -- the final resting place of St. Petronius (whose tomb was modeled after Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre) and the site of an ancient basin called Pilate's Fountain (as in Pontius).

Now back to the towers. Visually stunning, they are surrounded by arches, which open onto mounds of thick stones, wrought iron gates and other familiar chessboard-era imagery. The highest of the two is the 318-foot-tall Asinelli Tower, which visitors can ascend. Begun in 1109, it was later used as a prison. Its shorter companion, the Garisenda Tower, stands at a precarious incline - as far left-leaning as Bologna's politics.

Joe and I decided to climb the 500 steps to the top of Asinelli. Little did I know how terrifying it would be. Though I've always struggled with a fear of heights, I've reached the summits of a remarkably high number of Italian landmarks. But the climbs were relatively easy because many of the thick stone steps are secured within circular, window-less spires that prevent me from seeing the ground. Not so with the Torre Asinelli. It stands rigidly vertical, and its narrow wooden stairs (that looked as though termites had been feasting on them over the centuries) are tacked onto the fortress in a maze-like M.C. Escher pattern. The paltry watchtower James Stewart sweatily ascends in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo is a piece of cake compared to Asinelli's dizzying twists and turns. And despite the impossibly narrow steps, we were dealing with two-way

foot traffic (often of the rowdy teenage kind).

Once at the top, the view was undeniably glorious - a cartographer's dream as Bologna lay before us in a jigsaw pattern of red-tile roofs and multishaped bell towers. Thankfully, my husband has no fear of heights. In fact, he was content leaning over the tower's edge and never held onto the railings during the more treacherous descent. I, on the other hand, froze at the top landing. The railing was now on my left and swaying precariously over an abyss. I caught sight of the zigzagging steps and realized I would remain a prisoner in this tower for the rest of my life. But Joe coaxed me along and led the way, insisting I fix my gaze on his backpack and never, ever look down. I felt like Eurydice following Orpheus out of an unusually elevated Hades. And I miraculously survived.

Joe and I had worked up an appetite, and being in Italy's preeminent food region, we snacked our way to our hotel. By late afternoon, the yellow-orange sun bathed the city in alluring gilded liquefaction. Along the fashionable arcades, we tasted breads, cheeses, olives and cured meats at the open-air markets. I was particularly fond of the miniature crostata pastries filled with artichoke hearts and hard-boiled eggs. Stalls teemed with pungent tomatoes and rapini; women prepared fresh pasta in an immaculate storefront; and in one window, prosciutto the size of dinosaur gams hung next to thick wild boar sausages.

In the midst of such gastronomic splendor, on Via Clavature, we came upon an unusually laidback canine padrone of the block. A dachshund, named Toto, sat with his paws turned out like a penguin in the middle of the cobblestone street. Mopeds veered around him; cars eased past him; and the locals shook his paw and asked him what he thought of the weather or the latest news. The dog responded by wagging his tail or yawning. Sometimes he just stared straight ahead like a stone.

Later that evening, Joe and I strolled past Toto as we made our way to the elegant but unpretentious Trattoria Gianni. Though we had been nibbling on street food throughout the day, we managed to find room for fresh tortellini in broth, ravioli filled with currants and pine nuts, roasted lamb shank, grilled potatoes, and sautéed broccoli. By the time we sauntered back to the palazzo-style Art Hotel Orologio, a temporary carnival was in full swing in Piazza Maggiore. Children giggled on a merry-go-round near the Basilica di San Petronio, and crowds gathered around a man juggling torches as he balanced on a ladder.

The voices and laughter carried all the way to our room. As we drifted off to sleep, those same muted voices began to meander into our alpha state. They mingled with the imagined verse-spouting and proclamations of Bologna's ever-present ghosts of troubadours, dukes and lady-worshiping knights.

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