The largest segment, or fragment of the city where it is today inaugurated the District San Vitale is still visibly marked by ancient paths, some of which became Roman roads. Via Emilia, in fact, drawn in the Republican era, and intended to give the name to the entire region, defines the boundary of the neighborhood for a long stretch, heading south. A little farther on, with divergent path, the path that stretches from Bologna s'inoltrava towards the lowlands and marshes that led to the last capital of the West, namely in Ravenna, crossing the territory still held by the last Roman soldiers during their invasion of the Lombards, and therefore said Romània, or Romagna and is the street of San Vitale, joining the churches dedicated to the Holy both in Bologna and Ravenna which gives its name to the neighborhood.
The west side of the neighborhood is instead bounded by straight route of Independence, which is drawing century, but which follows the course of one of the main "pillars" of the crosslinked Roman road, which dates back to 191 BC, came by imposing geometric order and rational urban planning principles, of Hellenistic origin, to urban areas far more ancient. Also on the territory of our district, in fact, was located part of that housing complex that the Etruscans had called Fèlsina, or Velsna, and that was the eldest of their urban centers in the north of the Apennines; and that was the hub of commercial relations between Etruria and the Tuscan valley, stretching even to the landing of the East through the maritime trade of the Etruscan port of Spina, on the coast now long buried along the Adriatic, over Ravenna. The Roman settlers who came here in good numbers, maintained the city the name of Bononia, which had replaced the Etruscan, and indicated that a subsequent Gallic presence.
For here they had settled next to the Etruscans, nuclei consisting of Celtic warriors, most of the tribe of the Boi, and precisely from their language (bona, in the Celtic language means village) comes also the name of the current city of Bologna. Almost at the western edge of the neighborhood the straight path of the Via Emilia, undergoes a sudden adjustment, tilting significantly toward the east at the altitude of the Two Towers: and that is the site of the gateway to the east of the Roman city (and which is today known as Piazza di Porta Ravegnana).
That seemingly unmotivated deviation of a track that has not other for hundreds of miles has a curious historical reason: when in fact the military surveyors who traced the route of the road to the North-West came to that point, there they found the Roman city of Bologna, founded a few years ago and arranged along an axis perpendicular to the east and from north to south; and the oblique of the Via Emilia had to adapt to what the Romans themselves had built only a few years before the opening of the street. In our neighborhood there are also conspicuous traces of the first Christian Bologna.
Only the name has remained the place where, perhaps, the Romans built out door arena probably wooden and embankments; and the name is precisely that of the Church of San Vitale in Arena, sort, it is said, on the site where were martyred saints Vitale and Agricola, then chosen from the protectors of the city.
In the crypt, built in the eleventh century, you can imagine the route of the early church; and the memory of martyrdom is clearly and even spectacularly expressed in the altarpiece that Luigi Busi painted in 1884, placing it on the high altar, by the sixteenth-century altarpiece carved and gilded the architect Tommaso Sicilian Laureti.
On the western edge of the neighborhood is also the Cathedral church, dedicated to St. Peter. Its current appearance, due to the almost complete makeover seven-tury wanted by the Bolognese Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini, and built to designs by the architect Alfonso Torreggiani, conceals entirely the original medieval structure, dating from the tenth century, and enlarged several times and turned up to the middle of the thirteenth century; at that time you must place the beautiful Romanesque sculptures scattered in the interior of the vast temple, and who come from a monumental gate once opened on the side of the south, richly decorated with statues and reliefs of workers Campione.
The medieval history of our neighborhood is well documented by a remarkable complex of noble towers, almost all built in the twelfth century. The most famous is, of course, the donkeys and the Garisenda; and their height (the second was originally much higher, and was cut off for safety reasons, since the sinking of the ground on which it rests) clearly shows the purpose of picture display and for which they were raised, beyond every defense needs. Not far from them they arise other, in good numbers, as the Altabella, the Crowned, (which bears on the first floor, interesting graffiti dating back to the time when it was used as a prison archbishop); and others, in just a few steps, stood around the two most famous; and were thrown to the ground in 1920, under the pretext of giving space to the traffic of the modern city, and to build in place of those remnants medieval more functional buildings of shopping destination. Another memorable track of the Middle Ages is visible in the short section of the first wall, revealed at the apse of the church of San Giacomo Maggiore, and in torresotto Via San Vitale, one of the gates of the city in the first half of the thirteenth century. Exactly at that stretch of wall s'addossano the Oratory of Santa Cecilia, adorned with paintings of France and Aspertini, and the chapel of Bentivoglio. In this area of our neighborhood, in fact, stood the houses of the family that, throughout the fifteenth century, and until 1506, aspired to the lordship of the city.
Their magnificent palace took up all the space that goes from piazza Verdi current way of Fine Arts; was painted by French and France, and was demolished soon after the expulsion of the Bentivoglio of Bologna, at the time of the entrance into the city, as a temporal lord, Pope Julius II della Rovere. On its ruins, as you know, was later built the Municipal Theatre, built in 1763 to designs by Antonio Galli Bibiena. In that turbulent juncture was demolished the last of the towers of Bologna, which was also the highest, after the donkeys: and it was precisely the tower that the Bentivoglio were scrambled to their palace, and which they found along the foundation now Via Castagnoli.
The advent of the papal power and gradually subside contentions among aristocratic families can see, in our neighborhood, a search for stylish architectural refinement and ornamental in private buildings. Some facades of buildings (such as that of Fantuzzi in via San Vitale, of Bocchi in via Goito, designed by Vignola) bear showy plastic decorations; but even more amazing are the complex of frescoes that, throughout the sixteenth century and then the next two centuries, stretch to cover stories brilliantly painted and brightly colored salons of honor, stairs and dressing rooms of the palaces.
Shortly after 1550 the ground floor of Palazzo Poggi, now headquarters of the University, is home to Michelangelo's frescoes whimsical, by Pellegrino Tibaldi, who then emigrate to Milan and then to Spain, concluding his career with the decoration of 'Escorial. And the main floor of the same building, in the same years, Nicholas Abbot some frescoed halls, also portraying scenes gallant of his time, with the cool elegance that soon will bring to the court of France, continuing his work frescoing various rooms of the palace of Fontainebleau. On the same street, formerly known as San Donato (now Via Zamboni, in memory of a young patriot put to death by a papal court; a plaque reminds him, in the hall of the university), was the residence of the senatorial family Magnani . Their palace, built by Domenico Tibaldi with front on the square which is the church square in San Giacomo Maggiore, is within the three Carracci painted with a frieze depicting the origin of Rome; The painting, completed in 1591, is one of the greatest masterpieces of the three reformers of Italian painting, and was studied extensively by the Bolognese artists of the time to follow, so as to become a repertoire of forms and ways throughout the famous Bolognese school. The same time, or indeed a little later, are the mythological frescoes on the ceilings and chimneys of the Palazzo Sampieri, in the street Major, in three halls painted by Ludovico, Annibale and Agostino Carracci, last joint venture of the three painters, before the departure of Hannibal to Rome.
The age and seventeenth-century baroque counts, in our neighborhood, not a few wonders. Just to mention, among firms of repute, the severe and imposing facade of the Palazzo Davia-Bargellini, in the street Major, whose portal is flanked by a pair of beautiful statues due to the hand of Gabriele Brunelli, only direct dell'Algardi Bolognese follower. But we must, again, go into the interior of the churches and palaces to savor the incredible richness of the figurative Bologna seventeenth century, Baroque and barocchetta. On the altars of Gothic churches, such as those of St. James or St. Martin, are placed paintings fiercely opposed by Ludovico Carracci, Guido Reni, Tiarini and many other masters of the Bolognese school; and very often, next to the paintings, the statues appear and the stucco of artists like Giuseppe Maria Mazza, and then the Piò, the Scandellari.
Of so much wealth visible in the churches no small part, and perhaps the most famous, was merged in Napoleonic times, and then immediately after, in the halls of the National Art Gallery: institution which is highly prestigious post in the center of the old part of our neighbour- hood. There, in environments that were once used to Jesuit school and renovated in recent times and designed by Leo Pancaldi, are paintings especially famous Bolognese school; and not a few of them come from the sacred buildings of our own neighborhood. So it is, for example, the precious fragment of a fresco by Ercole de 'Roberti with the head of the Magdalene weeping over the body of Christ, which is the only surviving shred of decorating a noble chapel in the cathedral of San Pietro, demolished in reconstruction of the basilica. And so it is, even for example, the broader canvas of Guido Reni, with the Lamentation of Christ and the patron saints of the city of Bologna, which was once located on the high altar of the church of Beggars, almost to the door of St. Vitale, where today is worthily replaced by a nineteenth century copy of Clement Trees. Right next to the gallery, and the premises also once used as a church and Jesuit college, is the Academy of Fine Arts, which houses a rich harvest of works of art produced as academic activity (works that participated in numerous competitions and seven awards and nineteenth century, for example, as well as bequests or gifts of various teachers or members of the ancient Accademia Clementina, foundation eighteenth century).
Before Jacobean and Napoleonic, here, the Clementine Academy held their lessons and exercises at the Palazzo Poggi, near the city occupied by the contemporary Institute of Sciences, where scholars s'occupavano of every branch of scientific knowledge, the botanical anatomy, from physics to astronomy. In the halls of Palazzo Poggi museum complexes that follow each of those ancient activities conserve precious testimony; and at the height of the sixteenth-stands the massive tower of the eighteenth-century astronomical observatory, in which are preserved antique instruments for the observation and study of the stars. A short distance from the headquarters of the University of academic institutions are located elsewhere along the Via Irnerio or its immediate surroundings: in this area are located the conspicuous collected petrographic and mineralogical, botanical garden, and an interesting collection of anatomical pieces eighteenth modeled in colored wax. Throughout this part of the neighborhood gathered hath been, over time, most of the cultural institutions citizens, as we have seen. Still here, also, on the premises once the seat of the convent attached to the church of San Giacomo, age Napoleonic houses the Music Conservatory; The school is also home to a valuable library of musical texts, which originates from the famous library of eighteenth-century father Giovan Battista Martini; paintings attached to the library (mostly portraits of musicians, but there also appears a beautiful still life of music books painted by Giuseppe Maria Crespi) have now been placed in the nearby Palazzo Aldini already on the road Maggiore, where it has been recently established institute a museum dedicated to the history of music. A little further on, on the ground floor of the Palazzo Davia-Bargellini, housed a very interesting and diverse collection of paintings and objets d'art and furniture. The most historically significant part of our neighborhood is enclosed, of course, the last circle of the walls; and right here is preserved the longest stretch that still exists in that work of delimitation and defense, which runs between the door and the door Mascarella San Donato.
Beyond the city walls (and over the remains of the gates, still preserved in their backbone medieval) stretch the first residential neighborhoods designed according to orthogonal grids in the first decades of the last century; it is mostly in the residences of the middle class, often pleasing design nouveau or deco, surrounded by gardens. More over open areas of most recent expansion and edification, that come to lick the territory of Castenaso; where, as is well known, were discovered early Villanovan cemeteries (so called from the name of Villanova Castenaso), eloquent sign of the ancient Etruscan presence in the place of our current district.
http://www.comune.bologna.it/quartieresanvitale/servizi/150:21501/22244/
