City of Ferrara

According to the well-known definition of the Swiss historian Jacob Burckardt, Ferrara was the first modern city in Europe. This was due to the “Herculean addition” commissioned by Duke Ercole I d’Este in 1492, which not only doubled the surface area of the city, but also radically changed its appearance. Ferrara is full of fascinating reminders (fortunately still intact) of the splendour of its extraordinary past, in its gardens, in the narrow streets which are only properly seen by those who take their time, preferably by bicycle.

It is a city which has included masters such as Guarini and where students such as Copernicus graduated. It is a city of poets like Ariosto and Tasso, of writers like Bembo, of artists like Cosmé Tura and De Roberti, of architects like Leon Battista Alberti and Rossetti. It was the splendid and enlightened capital of the Estense Duchy and also the place which inspired the “metaphysical painting” of De Chirico, Savinio, Carrà and the young De Pisis. The director Antonioni and the novelist Bassani grew up here.

It is a city of silence, (although the word may not be wholly appropriate) which is loved for its spellbinding gentleness, and which inspired Bassani to write: “All of a sudden, looking at them and the enormous urban landscape, which I could see in its entirety from up there, I felt myself pierced by a great gentleness, by a peace and a horizon, brightly illuminating everything: the Jewish cemetery below me, the apse and bell tower of Saint Christopher’s church a little further away, and in the background, high above the dark brown expanse of roofs, the distant masses of the Estense Castle and the Cathedral”.

Even today, the city is fi lled with a magical atmosphere. From the austere Estense Castle to the splendid Cathedral, wherever one goes in the historical centre, one breathes the strength of the past and of tradition.

Ferrara keeps secrets which are impossible to know about by simply following tourist routes, in fact, they are often overlooked by the residents who pass close to them every day. Sometimes it is enough to pass ones hands over an old stone to feel the enchantment that runs from the medieval walls to the banks of the great river, where Ferrara becomes a city of water. Ferrara is a city of dreams which live and change day after day in the eyes of those who have chosen to fi nd the time to admire it.

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