Today's Place to Daydream about: Bologna

Bologna has had a rough history.

Founded by Etruscans, it was conquered by Gauls, then Romans. The Goths sacked it when they conquered Italy, and during Justinian's reconquest of Italy they sacked it again. Tradition records that after those slaughters the city had to be refounded by a certain Bishop Petronius, who also founded the Basilica of St. Stephen and is still the city's patron saint.

Then it was sacked by the Lombards, then by Charlemagne's Franks. Charlemagne attached the city to the papacy, which ruled it for a significant part of the time from then down to 1868.

Factional fighting in Bologna, from a 14th-century chronicle

But that didn't make the city's existence peaceful. It was caught up in wars between Popes and Emperors and developed stubborn Guelf and Ghibbeline factions that fought each other and regularly betrayed the city to their favored outside power. 

The leading families of each faction built the crazy towers that defined its image in the Renaissance.

Bologna was also fought over during the Napoleonic Wars and the wars of Italian independence, and during World War II big parts were bombed to rubble. After WW II it became known as the Red City because it was dominated by the communists; Italy had Western Europe's largest Communist Party in those days partly because while many Italians hated the fascists, the communists were the only ones who actually fought them.

The University

Yet, and this is an important point, the city nonetheless thrived, especially in the high Middle Ages. The university claims to have been founded in 1088, making it the oldest in the world. It was for centuries Europe's leading center for the study of Roman law.  

Across the 1100s and 1200s the economy boomed. One result of the medieval boom was the famous sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca, the construction of which began in 1193. It sits on a hill 1000 feet (300m) above the town, and the climb is a famous walk. It is now surrounded by a 17th-century collonade with 666 arches, which puzzles me, but then I freely confess that I know nothing about 17th-century Catholicism.

Map of the city in 1575, installed in the Pope's dining room in Rome

Construction of the current Basilica began in 1390. It was paid for by the townspeople in defiance of the Pope; the first stone bore the communal coat of arms. But it turned out that the city's leaders dreamed bigger than their purses could reach, and the unfinished shell was shut up for a century; it was not formally opened until the 1700s.

The Basilica holds several works by Michelangelo, including a famous image of Saint Petronius.

Bologna is particarly proud of its many porticoes; the local tourist authority has helpfully laid out a walking tour to help you sample them.

The 18th-century Villa Spada has a famous garden.

Bologna is not high on the list of Italian cities people want to visit, but I have always been intrigued.