Intro to Bologna

Apologies for the lack of updates in a while! I am very busy with classes and adjusting to living on my own in Italy. By the time I get back from class, prepare and eat dinner, it is almost 10 PM. And since I've been waking up freakishly early every day (5-6 AM), I collapse right after dinner and have to finish my homework in the morning. Blogging therefore gets pushed to the side.

My room. Notice that the blinds (le persiane) are on the outside of the window,
but can be raised or lowered from the inside.

But although I am kept busy, I am really enjoying living abroad so far. My housemates are awesome, the other American students are really fun, and I love my teachers. But actually my real classes have not started yet - this is still orientation. The students at the University of Bologna are currently in the midst of their final exams for the previous semester, and the new semester does not start until about February 5th. In the meantime, the Brown program conducts a 3 week long orientation for us and we take a contemporary Italian history course and an intensive language course. Our history professor is an extremely passionate teacher, and our language professoressa is very helpful as well. We also go on organized trips to Bolognese museums and nearby cities such as Ravenna, Verona, and Mantova, and the guided tours are fascinating. All classes and tours are conducted solely in Italian, mind you, so I am absorbing like a sponge.

Now I am going to present to you a long overdue introductory tour of Bologna. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Bologna originated as an Etruscan city called Felsina. A Celtic tribe called the Boii took over the city in the 4th century BC, and the two cultures were thoroughly mixed. Then the Romans conquered the city in the 3rd century BC and named the city Bononia after the Celts who lived there. Over time the city came to be called Bologna, as we know it today.

Here is the city layout, complete with all of my color-coded labels which I am about to explain:


Yellow circle = boundary of the ancient Roman city
Orange circle = boundary of the early medieval city
Bold red outline = boundary of late medieval city/modern city
Red box in center = Piazza Maggiore
Purple star = approx. position of my apartment
Pink star = Brown in Bologna office
Blue star = Mercato della Montagnola (open air market for clothes/accessories/misc. house wares)
Green star = Mercato delle Erbe (covered market for fruits/veggies/meat/cheese/dry goods)

The first thing to note is the expansion of the city over time. Each city border that I drew was once the site of a wall that surrounded the whole city. Unfortunately, only pieces of them are still in tact. The Bolognesi will be sure be sorry when the Ostrogoths attack again. The next thing to notice is the street layout. The Romans built their streets in a grid, which sounds logical enough, and their city center was roughly the location of the modern heart of the city, which is Piazza Maggiore.

Left to right: a municipal building, a financial building, and the Basilica of San Petronio.

As the city expanded in the Middle Ages, it expanded radially outward from two points on either side of the piazza (the yellow diamonds). The radial streets, shown as red lines starting at the yellow diamonds, can be thought of as the spokes of two great big bicycle wheels. The diamond at the right is site of Bologna's famous Two Towers (due torri), which are two of many towers constructed by noble families in the Middle Ages for defense and display of power.

Oh, and they're both leaning. Take that, Pisa.