This magazine has now celebrated its tenth anniversary. The current issue provides a complete panorama of cultural issues in Ferrara: there are articles on painting, cinema, literature, poetry, and urban planning; economics, economic history, the terrain, the history of the city and the major events of the century which has just come to an end.

Paintings from the Fondazione and the Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara shown at the Po Valley Mannerism exhibition in Mantua Vittorio Sgarbi's exhibition Nature and Manner: the violet ashes of Giorgione between Titian and Caravaggio runs at the Palazzo Te in Mantova until 9 January 2005. An event like this encourages us to consider Mannerism in its Po Valley context, a view which differs from…

1200 hectares of agricultural land from the city wall to the Po incorporated into the city What is the new purpose of a city? What needs cause a town to grow? And how does a town grow? Does growth have to mean an increase in the built-up area, or can a town grow in another way? How should we try to make a town like…

Films, roles and characters featuring some famous Ferrara actors, past and present In the panorama of Italian cinema, many actors from Ferrara stand out. During the 1920s, one of the major Italian stars was Livio Cesare Pavanelli (Copparo 1881 - Roma 1958). Vigorous, expressive, elegant in his white tie and tails, the embodiment of the belle époque, he was the Clark Gable, the Bob Taylor…

A selection of books from Ferrara bears witness to the city's rich and lively literary culture Among the city's myths that nevertheless contain a grain of truth, one of the most widespread and gratifying is the concept of ferraresità as a favourite element in our authors' writings. As usual, both those who support this idea and the equally convinced nay-sayers point to aspects which have…

Professor Marino Ortolani revolutionised the management of Italic paediatric departments For over fifty years, children in Ferrara have not simply gone to hospital but "to Ortolani". This identification of the hospital's paediatric department with the doctor who founded and directed it for more than three decades reveals the abiding impression that professor Marino Ortolani made on generations of people in Ferrara. Arriving in Ferrara in…

The protection of the city's architectural and historical heritage as the primary inspiration for planning During the nineteenth century Ferrara underwent an urban transformation dictated by the political and social developments introduced to Italy under Napoleonic rule. However, the outlines of Ferrara of the 1800s were still defined by the expansion of the city walls by Ercole I, and these changes had to be managed…

The Wild West in Piazza d'Armi: cowboys, cowgirls, horses, Indians and gunslingers in the first great American travelling show William Frederick Cody was born in Iowa in 1846. From childhood on he had been forced to provide for himself and his family, who had fallen into poverty after moving to Kansas. Will Cody learnt to hunt when very young. At the age of eleven, he…

A look back at the roads and waterways in the Ferrara region A society like ours is hungry for communication. But people and goods are increasingly compelled to move more slowly, with constant tiresome delays, through a landscape which is increasingly urban, that is to say, uninterruptedly built up and inhabited. Their users complain that the roads are still inadequate. Today, millions of tonnes of…

A cycle ride by night along the real and metaphysical walls of Ferrara The walls built by the Este and restored some fifteen years ago are still the stuff of dreams. After dinner one evening I decided to cycle alongside these walls under the new lighting installed by the city authority. I set out on my nocturnal ride close to the newly restored Porta Paola,…

Il tempio è oggetto di un restauro importante, esemplare delle tendenze museologiche più avanzate e illuminate   Racconta Goethe, che nel 1787 Philipp Hackert, pittore e paesaggista che il poeta stimò al punto di raccogliere in una biografia il suo diario (Philipp Hackert. La vita, ed. or. Tubinga 1811, trad. it. a cura di M. Novelli Radice, Napoli-Roma 1988), su ordine di Ferdinando IV re…

Acquistata un'importante raccolta di ceramiche graffite ferraresi e padane   La Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara ha acquisito recentemente una delle più ampie e importanti collezioni private di ceramiche tardomedievali e rinascimentali dell'area padana centro-orientale, in buona parte di origine ferrarese. La collezione comprende trecentosessanta ceramiche, in parte illustrate in pubblicazioni dell'ultimo venticinquennio dedicate alle graffite ferraresi e nel catalogo della mostra dedicata a…

Centosettantasei anni di storia e di progressi hanno fatto di una piccola realtà locale un gruppo articolato, di rilievo nazionale   Dal 1838, anno in cui ha ricevuto l'autorizzazione sovrana di Papa Gregorio XVI, la Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara ha incominciato a correre. E veloce. Il fondo di dotazione iniziale di scudi romani 2.000, pari a lire italiane 10.640, raccolto mediante sottoscrizione di 100…

Oggi pomeriggio le strade di Ferrara sono state un sogno... si cammina senza scopo, poiché si vive in un sogno. In un sogno dove non si desidera niente: ma se si intravede da una loggia di marmo un bellissimo giardino, quale mai si è visto o si vedrà, si desidera potervisi fermare, di non sfrecciare più nello spazio e nel tempo e di poter restare…

Ferrara. Voci di una cittàRivista semestrale di cultura, informazione e attualitàAnno 11, numero 21 - Dicembre 2004Registrata presso il Tribunale di Ferrara il 9 novembre 1994 con il numero 13/94. ISSN 1128-3572Spedizione in abbonamento postale c. 1, art. 1, l. 46/2004Edizione fuori commercio, riservata ai soci e agli amici della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di FerraraComitato EditorialeFrancesca Bargellesi, Vittorio Emiliani, Giorgio Franceschini, Roberto Pazzi, Paolo…