Gerolamo Melchiorri

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:19:20 +0000
Num. 33

The streets of Ferrara, almost a century later

For almost one hundred years the attention shown by the public in the work of Gerolamo Melchiorri, describing the history of the streets in the centre of Ferrara, has provided a clear sign of an enormous interest in the culture of the city. The work, patiently drawn up over an extended period of time, marks one of the stages that the urban history of the city has lived through, starting from Rossetti's remarkable 'Addizione Erculea'.

During the Enlightenment, when the history of Ferrara began again and new considerations about the future were made, images of a different reality of the street plan were produced, leading to ulterior literary elaboration. This 'awakening' can also be seen in the large plates engraved by Bolzoni. These plates, depicting Ferrara's planimetry, became a fundamental point of reference for Melchiorri, who meticulously interpreted them through laborious archive research, thereby adding concrete political, civil and urban history to the innovations that had taken up residence within that network of streets. His work appears to conclude that period of rediscovery of the city and is theproduct of historical studies inspired by the Enlightenment and by Bolzoni's masterful engravings and imagination. Previous studies were carried out on a long list of important historical buildings made by Giuseppe Antenore Scalabrini which left, by the end of 1700, a practically illegible manuscript dedicated to a five-day guide of the city. The translation, carried out by Carla Frongia in 1997 and published in the "Quaderni del Liceo Ariosto", shows the impracticability of those dense pages which were created to illustrate the Estense City to the illustrious travellers on their Grand Tour. But the series of progressive developments to the history of Ferrara's streets, concluding with Melchiorri, had undergone several previous attempts including Brisighella's century-long exploit; however during the entire eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century there were no differences either in the methods used or the merit obtained. Both the precision and the originality of the overall design is all thanks to Gerolamo Melchiorri, qualities that have continued to be appreciated by scholars since 1918 - the year of the first edition of Nomenclatura ed Etimologia delle Piazze e Strade di Ferrara. Other similar attempts have been made from 1918 to the present day: in 1939 Sautto compiled a guide with the development of tourism in mind, but this work falls far short of that of Melchiorri. Why has the quality of Melchiorri's work lasted for so long? The answers are as follows: the names of the streets are listed in alphabetical order, making reference easier; historical events concerning important buildings are noted; the narration is a story in itself, told with enough humour to make reading enjoyable; as a result of the diligent research carried out on the archives, organizing the sources, the work becomes a resource of first-hand information, comparable to Bolzoni's plan, the official document that conditions all building work in the historical city centre; as the buildings have remained largely unchanged, they are easy to recognize. Almost one century has passed and the streets have certainly undergone changes; new buildings here and there, modified paving, street names changed or added. However, it was decided not to add to Melchiorri's work, but instead to provide a series of "extensions" in the form of additional news, to enrich the overall view, as a new acquisition to the quality of the actual sites. Special attention and new texts were only included in two areas: the "Quartiere Giardino" (see Corso Isonzo) and the notorious "Demolition of San Romano" (see Corso di Porta Reno). Two books, published at different times, were fundamental in the creation of the "extensions": the first, Parole di marmo (by Rita Castaldi and Paola Marescalchi), deals with the plaques; the second, Itinerari di Ferrara moderna (by Lucio Scardino) is an attentive analysis of modern Ferrara. Finally, I would like to mention Giuseppe Petrucci, who transcribed all of the plaques positioned in the city's streets, a work that goes hand in hand with that of Gerolamo Melchiorri.