Verona

Verona

Verona is a truly beautiful city which blends its glorious, centuries-old history with a superbly harmonious urban character. This part of the Po Valley has uninterruptedly been a vital area for communication ever since the remotest of times with the first human settlements. The Brennero road and the course of the Adige river ar... Read on

Verona

Verona is a truly beautiful city which blends its glorious, centuries-old history with a superbly harmonious urban character. This part of the Po Valley has uninterruptedly been a vital area for communication ever since the remotest of times with the first human settlements. The Brennero road and the course of the Adige river are two such arteries of communication. The first pre-historical settlements rose on the “Collina di San Pietro” next to a narrow point in the river suitable for crossing. This is also where the very first Rhaeto-Etruscan village was to flourish. Polybius, however, records the first contacts between Rome and an inhabited area here only in the fourth century BC. In 148 BC the via Postumia was opened. Not only did this road help to develop further the beginnings of this city, but so too did it put Verona on a direct line between Aquileia and Genoa. Not by chance, therefore, was the first major development of the city’s original settlement on the right bank of the Adige River recorded in the second century BC. By the middle of the following century the city received Roman citizenship and sought to give a major impulse to urban development throughout the entire inhabited area. Verona had by then become a strategic outpost and important commercial centre within a system of roads undergoing major development. A truly classical Roman city was thus born which, because of its specific characteristics, simply grew up on the right bank of the river. This was the lower side of the river and on a plain. The left side was destined to carry out purely celebratory functions. It was, in fact, the perfect site for Verona’s theatre and large temple. Within the urban centre the cardo (which now corresponds to via Leoni, via Cappello and via Sant’Egidio) and the decumanus (Corso Porta Borsari and Corso Sant’Anastasia) met up in the Forum which was, more or less, where Piazza delle Erbe is today. The housing blocks seemed to be arranged in a regular grid of straight streets which were either parallel or perpendicular to each other. This grid can still be discerned in the ancient city centre. Where the river itself did not protect the city, walls were raised around the inhabited area with two large gates. By the first century AD, however, these same walls could no longer contain the city’s rapidly growing population and urban development. Such development continued outside the Roman walls with the building of the impressive “Arco dei Gavi” and, above all, the amphitheatre. Much later when the threat of barbarian invasion became apparent, in 265 AD emperor Gallienus decided to protect the entire city with huge fortifications.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Verona became the capital of the Ostrogoth and Longobard dominions. Such renewed responsibility did not, however, seem to have particular repercussions on the urban structure. What did modify the urban structure in a decisive fashion was the appearance of monastic settlements in the city such as San Giovanni in Valle, Santa Maria in Organo and San Fermo Maggiore. Together with the monumental nucleus of the cathedral and San Zeno, these monastic settlements ended up becoming the main points of reference within the urban fabric of the mediaeval city. In the course of the centuries, Verona often suffered huge losses, for example, at the hands of the Hungarians in the tenth century and because of the plagues which would repeatedly jeopardise its very existence. Despite these setbacks, however, Verona continued to flourish because of its rapidly expanding economy, its enviable geographic position and the entrepreneurial character of its busy merchant trade. Even when the Adige river dramatically overflowed its banks in the ninth century and shifted its own bed causing disastrous effects on the city, growth continued and the river itself remained an important resource. Verona as a free commune embarked on the construction of bridges and new, wider defence mechanisms such as the opening of numerous canals next to the course of the famous Adigetto to protect the outermost parts of the city. Ezzelino da Romano was the political leader of the communal city of Verona between 1232 and 1259. Even though members of the Della Scala family had formerly occupied public offices, in 1259 when Mastino I of the powerful Della Scala family from Verona took over, communal freedom fell. Mastino I della Scala succeeded Ezzelino first of all as “podestà” or leader of the Commune, then as captain of the people. When he finally became the effective lord of the city he inaugurated a period of splendour for a dynasty which was to last right through to the fifteenth century. Henry VII officially recognised it as the ruling family not only of Verona but also of the other territories it was to conquer. Dante was to remain eternally grateful to this family for having been able to spend part of his exile there under the protection of Bartolomeo I and his brother Cangrande I. The Della Scala family significantly reorganised the urban structure of Verona building elegant monuments which might celebrate their power. Alberto I and Cangrande I endowed the city with another wall which surrounded an area of fallow land so as to allow for further urban development. In the middle of the fourteenth century Cangrande II patronised the building of Castelvecchio which, together with its bridge, represented above all a defence against possible internal enemies.

The plans of the Della Scala family also included the very heart of the city such as Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori. At the same time, the wool trade and commerce underwent systematic, progressive development. In 1387 Gian Galeazzo Visconti conquered the city, but the Della Scala family soon found their way back to power. Shortly afterwards, however, the Della Scala family lost this power forever when the Venetian Republic took over in 1405. The dominion of the Serenissima, though decisive from the political point of view, did not significantly modify, however, the architectural identity of Verona as the Della Scala family had left it. In the sixteenth century, however, a strong artistic personality came to the fore, Michele Sanmicheli. This was when the first major urban modifications were carried out, such as the dismantlement of the military citadel which had been built by the Visconti family in the southern part of the city. This part went back to cultivating its ancient residential character with the building of fine town houses for the gentry under the architectural guidance of Sanmicheli himself. The walls around this area were strengthened and widened. The overall result was a complete metamorphosis of large tracts of urban living. Because of the terrible plague of 1630 and the Serenissima’s systematic attempt to limit and circumscribe the terra ferma nobility, Verona underwent stagnation and contraction during the seventeenth century. In a reaction to this imposed isolation, the leading classes of Verona sought to increase their merchant trade. As a result, Verona turned more and more from military action to commercial endeavour making the most of its extremely fertile farmlands. Such waning insistence upon the strategic importance of the city allowed for the dismantlement of the defence systems. At the same time urban living became more and more comfortable and spacious, especially with the definition of the whole area of the Bra. Administration too underwent radical transformation. At the turn of the nineteenth century certain foreign dominions were established in the city. In 1796 the French occupied Verona. In 1801 the treaty of Lunéville divided the city between the Austrians and those north of the Alps but in 1805 the French returned to be its undisputed official rulers. In 1814, however, on a European level it was decided that Verona should be given back to the Habsburgs. Once more under Austrian rule, Verona was then to carry out yet again its ancient military function by using its strategic importance to defend the Austrian possessions in Italy. The undeferrable requirements of war deemed necessary that military rigour should soon profoundly characterise the life of this extraordinarily dynamic city in both its urban fabric and economy. Only with the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy in 1866 would Verona regain an urban dimension more respectful of its history and happier economic prospects. A widespread programme of industrial development was carried out in parallel with a radical rethinking of urban building. After the disastrous floods of 1882 which caused the erection of the unique containing walls and the disappearance of the picturesque world moving about on the banks of the river, work was also carried out to more rationally direct the flow of the Adige river. During the twentieth century the city’s population grew so much that it could no longer be contained by the walls built so many centuries beforehand. This demographic overflow colonised the outer-lying areas, very often, however, in a chaotic fashion. The city was heavily damaged during the Second World War, especially due to bombing. Immediately afterwards, however, in 1945, an articulated plan was made ready to re-build what had been torn to pieces. During the following decades a policy was implemented so as to revitalise the historical centre together with its artistic and architectural patrimony. Even though such guided intervention often gives rise to heated debate and varying interpretations of what ought to be done, this policy is still being carried out today. Today Verona is an important commercial cross-roads. It is the second most-important business centre in the Veneto Region with its activities ranging throughout a whole series of fields, especially agriculture and industry. The industrial sectors, in fact, are extremely diversified, going from the preparation of agricultural products and marble, to shoes and leather goods, clothing and the confectionery industry. The services sector is also especially strong. The city is, furthermore, the seat of prestigious fairs and expos, such as the “Fiera dell’Agricoltura”, which is the most important in Europe, and the renowned “Vinitaly”.

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