Those of us who return to Ferrara after a brief or lengthy absence immediately notice how its beauty has remained intact. A thought that strikes not only the citizens of Ferrara but also foreigners. However, in this age of the global village, the world understood as a single locale, the particular features that make cities so different from one another ought to be preserved and…

Notes on the first great literary festival in Ferrara. About ten years ago I took part in a literary convention in Lahti, Finland, which focused on the death sentence pronounced by Khomeini's totalitarian regime against Salman Rushdie. After my speech, I was approached by an Australian Poet, Alain Wearne. When he heard I was from Ferrara, he said he would send me a copy of…

The great ferrarese traditions of gardening, between recovery and oblivion. Under the Estes, the art of gardening reached levels of perfection in which a syncretism of different disciplines - design, architecture, sculpture, mechanics and philosophy - led to a result that aroused the admiration of ambassadors and other illustrious guests of the Este family. The magnificent gardens of the Castle, with its pavilion supported by…

I live in Milan, it's thirty years since I last went to a football match, yet I support a team whose players I have never seen face to face. Here's why. Since that far off day when, having left Ferrara, I moved to Milan, hundreds of people have asked me whether I support AC Milan or Internazionale. And, every time, my reply would leave the…

The 'Cathedral' of Giuseppe Coen has come back to light, to remind us of a great nineteenth century artist from Ferrara. Giuseppe Coen (Ferrara 1810 - Venice 1856) was certainly one of the liveliest, most gifted, and celebrated artists of his time. As Savonuzzi observed in his seminal work, the Ottocento ferrarese, published by the Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara in 1971, although the fecundity…

Poetic suggestions and day-to-day life in the Delta of the Po. I think Torre Abate was one ot the last works carried out by the engineers of the Este dukes; now there is little left of the water that, depending on occasional changes in the political and economic situation, had spelled wealth or poverty for the local folk. For centuries, it spelled only poverty. Man…

One place, three masterpieces, one large restoration. In recent months, after over fifty years in oblivion, the parts of the apse of the Cathedral damaged by the bombing in 1944, elements of an extraordinary complex dating from the great days of the Renaissance, have been the order of the day in the press as well as the subject of much political debate. Of these parts,…

The Fondazione's painstaking task of recreating a "paradise lost" that has never quite disappeared from memory.The magnificentia of the court was tangible in the opulence of the pictures, sculptures, and furnishings that adorned the private and public rooms, the open spaces and smaller rooms in the ducal palaces, and in those of the aristocracy: the decorations and frescoes to be seen there, according to Sabatino…

An intellectual who revolutionized the assessment of works of art and the father of artistic historiography. Francesco Leopoldo Cicognara was born in Ferrara in 1767 to count Filippo Cicognara and Luigia Gaddi from Forlì. As the eldest son of a great family, the young count's education was entrusted to the Collegio dei Nobili in Modena where he showed no particular interest in cultural matters. His…

The recovery of Ferrara and Comacchio was one of the most important aims of the Este dukes and their diplomacy after the revolution of 1598. In 1598, Cesare d'Este, having understood the futility of any attempts to resist papal commands backed up by military threats, definitively left Ferrara for Modena. While he recognized that the Papacy had effectively taken possession of the duchy, he took…

Dark, warm colours were the best friends of Lucrezia Borgia's beauty. Among the renaissance ladies whose glamour and elegance is still remembered, none can boast a trousseau as sumptuous as the one Lucrezia Borgia took with her when she left Rome for Ferrara to become the bride of Alfonso I d'Este. The inventory mentions two hundred blouses, of which many were worth one hundred ducats…

European Monetary Union, born only a few months ago, boasts an ancient and illustrious origin in Ferrara. The decision taken by the University of Ferrara to launch a series of books devoted to Economics will surely meet with the approval of all those who attribute due importance to progress in the science of Economics. The first book in the series is an essay by Alfredo…

Il nuovo spaventa: il vero coraggio è non aver paura del nuovo. Un anno di svolta per la Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara, nelle parole di Alfredo Santini all'Assemblea dei Soci. Per il mondo bancario, il 1998 è stato un anno di grandi cambiamenti. Il più pervasivo è stato quello imposto dall'avvicinamento all'Europa e dall'introduzione della moneta unica, che ha impegnato fortemente tutte le banche.…

Il territorio di Ferrara non è paragonabile a quello di Bologna; però non è un deserto, come alcuni lo dipingono; né esistono ora le cause che in altri tempi fecero malsano questo paese: la coltura dei campi è considerevolmente aumentata, sono stati prosciugati molti acquitrini, le acque sono state incanalate, rendendole utili, e ora l'aria di quella città non è contagiosa e infetta, come alcuni viaggiatori…

Ferrara. Voci di una cittàRivista semestrale di cultura, informazione e attualitàAnno 6, numero 10 - Giugno 1999Registrata presso il Tribunale di Ferrara il 9 novembre 1994 con il numero 13/94Spedizione in abbonamento postale c. 20/c, art. 2, l. 662/96Edizione fuori commercio, riservata ai soci e agli amici della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di FerraraComitato EditorialeFrancesca Bargellesi, Luciano Chiappini, Vittorio Emiliani, Giorgio Franceschini, Roberto Pazzi, Paolo…