Thursday, June 10, 2010
My cousin drove me to Verona where I stayed 6 1/2 hours all alone in the city of Romeo and Juliet. It was probably better that I was alone as I took my time and really soaked up the city.
I visited the Casa di Giulietta
The house claiming to be Juliet’s. It has been turned into a tourist attraction. It features the balcony and in the small courtyard, a bronze statue of Juliet. It is one of the most visited sites in the town.
Many people write their names and the names of their beloved ones on the walls of the entrance, known as Juliet’s wall. Many believe that writing on that place will make their love everlasting. After a restoration and cleaning of the building, it was intended that further writing should be on replaceable panels or white sheets placed outside the wall.
I also visited three churches.
Church of Saint Anastasia
St. Anastasia is the largest church in Verona. The church you can see nowadays was built by the Dominican Order and dedicated to Saint Peter Martyr, Dominican monk and co-patron of Verona together with Saint Zeno. Being built on the site on which an older church dedicated to St. Anastasia was, people of Verona still call it this way.
St. Anastasia is a superb gothic building, boasting a majestic apse and a high bell tower. Everything is made in red bricks. Facade was never completed in its upper section but it proudly displays a double opening ogival portal in polychromatic marble. Left of the facade, in the beautiful little square in front of St. Anastsia, the suspended tomb of Guglielmo da Castelbarco, the forerunner of the famous Scala family tombs.
St Anastasia is divided in three aisles, decorated by beautiful lateral chapels, presenting rich collections of paintings by famous painters from Verona such as Girolamo dai Libri and Altichiero. Very interesting are also the two holy-water fonts supported by two hunchbacks. One was probably sculpted by Paolo Veronese father who was a stone cutter.
St Anastasia most famous work of art is the fresco by Pisanello representing St George freeing the Princess, considered a masterpiece of gothic painting. It decorates the arch of Pellegrini Chapel.
Duomo di Verona – the Cathedral Complex
Rather than a single building, the area surrounding the Cathedral of Verona is constituted by a series of religious buildings linked together: the Duomo (Cathedral), St Giovanni in Fonte baptistery of Verona, St. Elena, the Canonical museum, its cloister, the library, the bishop residence and the bell-tower. Some are closed to the public and some are opened only in certain period of the year.
The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Mary Matricular, like the earlier churches that have been erected here since IV century. The actual building was built in Romanesque style 1187, but was restored and enlarged in gothic style in 1440. Of the original austere Romanesque structure remain the double prothyron with its twisting columns and the winged griffins, the sculptures of the portal and few decorations. On the side of the Cathedral there’s the huge bell tower. The base dates back to thirteenth century, the central storey was designed by Sanmicheli in sixteenth century and the top part, unfinished, was built in the early twentieth century.
The inside is divided into a nave and two aisles by beautiful gothic columns in dark red Veronese marble. Fresco decorations on the walls are by Falconetto, painted in the sixteenth century.
The apse basin is decorated with a fresco by Francesco Torbido taken from Giulio Romano design.
The most important painting of Verona Duomo is the big Our Lady of Assumption painted in 1535 by Titian.
On the outside, hided in a small alley, there’s one of most beautiful cloister in town: the Chapter cloister. Built in 1140 above the remains of earlier Christian basilicas it’s one of the purest examples of Romanesque style with its small columns arranged in couples which on the eastern side, pan out into a double order of small arches. In two “windows” opened on the floor of the cloister, mosaics from earlier churches can be admired.
On the back og the Cathedral, St. Giovanni in Fonte was the cathedral baptistery. It dates back to 1123, made in honey coloured sandstone. The inside is dominated by the monolithic baptismal font in its centre. It was created by master Brioloto in thirteenth century and because of its extraordinary naturalistic vivacity is considered one of the highest examples of Romanesque sculpture in Verona, depicting scenes of the life of Jesus.
Church of Saints Fermo and Rustico
The church of the Saints Fermo and Rustico is one of the most representative examples of Gothic architecture in Verona. The actual church dates back to the fourtenth century, but on the place, layer after layer, and various churches were built since fourteenth century on the place on which the two saints undergone martyrdom in 361. The facade is characterized by the typical stripes of yellow sandstone and red bricks together with the beautiful portal contribute to create a building of rare beauty.
In the inside the visitor is stunned by the wooden hull-like ceiling and the funeral monument of Nicolò Brenzoni, sculpted by the Florentine Nanni di Bartolo and decorated with an elegant fresco by Pisanello depicting the Annunciation.
Lower church
St. Fermo and Rustico is basically constituted by two different churches, a lower and an upper one. The lower church is made of evocative cross vaults supported by cross shaped pillars. It still holds many interesting eleventh and thirteenth century frescos.
Here are more photographs I took in Verona, Italy.
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Are these places really that beautiful or we can only see the beauty through your lens?
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