EYWandBTV

Hello all,

We began planning our Italy trip a few months ago. We wanted to visit a new region so we chose Emilia Romagna, with a bit of southern Lombardy included. Beginning with Mantova / Mantua, we planned a circular trip, over to Ravenna, then to the village of Brisighella in the Appenines, then Bologna. We would fly into Rome for a brief visit then up to ER.

The weeks before departure were not good—illness and two deaths among our circle of friends then Hurricane Irma clobbering Key West where we live in the winter and spring. Just before the trip we both felt like just staying home, avoiding the “work” of flying and travelling, and instead enjoying a quiet autumn in Vermont. But 48 hours after landing, Italy was performing its therapy.

Us: late 60s and early 70s, still chugging along, but we find that we need more time to get our energy back after a transatlantic flight. We flew Air Canada from Montreal nonstop to Rome. We chose to drive up from our home in Vermont to the Montreal airport, an easy 2-hour drive, in order to avoid changing flights in Phila or Newark, and this worked well. Air Canada has a new, special price on premium economy seats, with much more room, a greater incline, and this made the flight much easier.

MONDAY Oct. 16 - ROME

Easy flight to FCO, breezed through customs, onto the Leonardo Express, then a few minutes walk from Termini station over to Hotel Columbia, on via Viminale 15. A very comfortable hotel with a rooftop breakfast room and terrace for coffee or drinks in the evening.

We walked ten minutes into the Monti neighborhood for a good lunch at La Bottega del Caffee in the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti. Then a 15-minute walk to San Clemente. This site has been described many times here so I’ll just say that it was truly time travel, from the street-level church of the Renaissance, down one level to the early Christian church, then farther down to the Temple of Mithra. Surrounding the area of the temple were many corridors and rooms. Some of these, it is thought, were part of the imperial mint, others part of one or more noble houses. I had visited San Clemente way back in 1970 (gasp) and do not remember so many rooms surrounding the temple and I wonder if they have been excavated in the past few decades.

We walked back over the Oppio, past Nero’s Domus Aurea, through the Piazza Martino Luther (surprise; I had never heard of this piazza; what would the Pope think??) This is a beautiful, quiet park. We then returned to the hotel for a couple of lazy hours.

This was the sum total of our touring around Rome. We had designed this trip in a Slow Travel mode. We went to dinner at Hostaria Romana, just a couple of blocks from the via delle Quattro Fontane, down via Rasella at the corner of Boccaccio.

This little place has great ratings and I had reserved the previous week. Good thing, too, because it was packed and walk-ins were turned away. Dinner was superb. They offered several little free bites, arancini and such, and then we had as primi tortellini in brood and fettucine con gorgonzola; second = osso bucco and maialino roast suckling pig. The wine they chose was a delicious Tuscan red, Morellino di Scansano 2015. Panna cotta and a Cynar for dessert. Total bill = 95 euro. 100% Superb.

TUESDAY October 16 - MANTOVA / MANTUA

After a relaxing breakfast and a coffee on the upper terrace, we left Hotel Columbia and took the freccia up to Verona, then a regionale to Mantova, arriving mid-afternoon.

Walking to our hotel in the centro was like walking into the Renaissance—what a marvelous little city, So beautifully intact but not in an artificial way. Full of gentle, easy activity, grandparents, kids, many dogs, lots of bicycles moving piano piano. We checked into our B&B, the Palazzo Arrivabene, and looked forward to our three days in Mantova.

Calabria62

Lovely report, so far. Looking forward to the rest.

EYWandBTV

==> The hotel: Palazzo Arrivabene. Perhaps the most historic and luxurious place we’ve ever stayed, anywhere. But not outrageously expensive. A big double room with expansive breakfast was 150 euro per night. Built in the 1500s by the Arrivabene family, the Mantova branch. The other part of the family was and still is based in Venice but originally came from Constantinople around 1000 CE. At some point they became linked with the Valenti and Gonzaga families. Vast wealth, palaces, other assorted homes, art works, etc. Example: George Clooney just got married in a big Arrivabene palazzo in Venice.

The Mantova palace was sold in 1960 to the Bini family. Today, Signora Bini and her son Claudio manage the B&B, which consists of three large bedrooms, a big entry hall, a big salon, and a big dining room (sorry to be repetitive, but what can I do?)

The B&B is on the third floor, reached by a beautiful staircase and entry hall. The ceiling of the entry hall is covered by a 16th century fresco. Fragments of frescoes rescued during the 1960s restoration decorate the walls, including pieces by the school of Mantegna (creator of the Camera degli Sposi in the Palazzo Ducale, more on that later) and the school of Giulio Romano (architect of Palazzo Te, more on that later also).

So, after settling in, I walked to the Basilica di Sant Andrea (partner had a stomach bug so relaxed at the hotel). Around 1470, Ludovico Gonzaga resolved to rebuild the old gothic basilica. The Gonzagas had been ruling Mantova for some time. They had followed the standard playbook for Italian Renaissance rulers: Step #1: form a gang of thugs. Step #2: murder the present rulers (the Bonacolsi clan in this case). Step #3: take over the city. Step #4: cultivate the arts, patronize the great masters, build beautiful buildings. Oh yes, I forgot Step #5: war incessantly against the neighboring towns, in a dizzying, shifting pattern of alliances.

Back to Ludovico: he enticed the great Leon Battista Alberti to rebuild the basilica. Ludovico, and many other rulers south of Milan, abhorred the “new” gothic architecture then penetrating northern Italy. It was germanic and disfigured by awkward buttresses and all that. Ludovico and Alberti wanted to return to the solid classical Roman tradition. This they did with a flourish: the facade of the new (ca 1472) basilica is a magnificent version of a Roman triumphal arch and the interior of the church is capped by a single enormous barrel vault. No side aisles. Instead there are side chapels. The overall impression is one of a unified design with great splendor. Mantegna is buried in the first chapel on the left.

I went back to the hotel, partner was reviving, and we walked about 20 minutes to the Osteria Ai Ranari for dinner. This is a family style place serving many regional dishes. We attempted to try a number of them. For primi: sorbir d’agnoli in brodo = little stuffed pastas in chicken broth with a splash of wine, very delicate taste. And a plate of four local cheeses and four types of salumi and prosciutto, with four types of Mantovan mostarda (sort of jams of different fruits). Incredibly good.

The cheese-salumi plate came with instructions from the waitress on which mostarda went with which cheese and/or salumi/prosciutto. Two of the offerings on this plate were especially fine. There was a blue cheese covered in a kind of, I don’t know what, a kind of dark blue-black something, like soft chopped peppercorns. But for the life of me I could not figure out what it was. It turns out it was the lees, or remains, of the crushed grapes after wine-making. At least I think that’s what she said, my Italian is not ready for that kind of detailed conversation! The other offering on this plate included one particular kind of prosciutto which really was extraordinary. I think it may have been culatello, but I ate it so fast I forgot to ask the waitress what it was. It was so thin it tasted like eating air. Again, wonderful.

Secondi: tagliatelle with gorgonzola, very good. And risotto alla pilota, bland and ordinary. This dish was a favorite of workers in the fields, so I’m guessing it tasted just the way it should, nothing fancy. But it was basically a dry unflavored risotto with bits of mild sausage.

Wine: a bottle of local Lambrusco, unsubtle and fizzy. I wanted to try the local stuff to see if it was much different from what we swilled in college. It wasn’t. But I followed this with a Cynar for digestif and it was fine. I have just started trying Cynar which I really like. Who knew that artichokes could produce such a good after-dinner drink?

The bill: 57.50 euro. I thought it was a misprint, read it again, nope, that’s it. Quite a value.

To bed, have to get ready for the Palazzo Ducale tomorrow.

sundriedtopepo

I think I will be adding this to my list of need-to-go places. Have been to Ravenna, and loved loved it.

russ_in_LA

Loved visiting Mantova when we lived in Bologna in the late 90's. Glad to hear that it hasn't lost its charm. Great report! Looking forward to the rest.

massimop

Osteria ai Raineri is one of my favorite trattorie in Italy. I am not much of a cheese eater, but there are many cheeses in Italy aged in the residue crushed grapes. Riso alla pilota is named after the pilots of the low boats that service the rice paddies surrounding Mantova, warm and filling, the essence of comfort food. It is one of my very favorite rice dishes, deeply aromatic, flavored with the unique sausage of Mantova -- a dish impossible to get anywhere outside of Mantova (I've even tried to make it & can't) and I would go to Mantova for no other reason than to eat it. So I'm sorry you didn't like it. I would encourage others to give it a go if they like rice & meat dishes -- although don't expect something resembling risotto as eaten in the US with cheese & butter. It's made with a completely different kind of rice and not pain-stirred.

massimop

sorry for my typoa. Osteria ai Ranari

EYWandBTV

WEDNESDAY October 18 - Mantova

We awoke in our palazzo after a good night’s sleep and had breakfast in the Renaissance/Mannerist dining room. Claudio, the owner, chatted with us about the history of the building, showing us among other things the damaged portion of the ceiling fresco caused by a particle of an English fire bomb during World War II, also the burned section of the wood flooring. The house across the street was totally destroyed. The family, after purchasing the palazzo in 1960, spent years restoring it.

Off to the Palazzo Ducale. It had not been clear to me, from reading the web site, how exactly the visit would be arranged because entry to the Camera degli Sposi was apparently separate from entry to the rest of the palace complex. So I will mention the steps here for people who are interested in visiting: first, of course, go to the biglietteria, the ticket office.

We bought the Mantova Card (good for visiting more than a dozen sites including the Palazzo Te). This card includes the entire Palazzo Ducale complex. But you also must pay a supplement of 5 euro to visit the Camera degli Sposi. Also important to keep in mind: the Camera is located in the Castello San Giorgio, at the northwest end of the palace complex, and often the palace staff will refer to “San Giorgio” when directing you to the entry point for the Camera; this is a different entry point from the entry point for the Palazzo (this latter entry point is to the right of the ticket office).

Also, the lady at the ticket office was kind enough to say that there were no tour groups going to the Camera at that moment so we could go in right away, otherwise you are assigned a time for entry and you can only remain inside the Camera for 15 minutes.

We went to the entrance for the Camera, at the foot of Castello San Giorgio (there’s a big banner outside, easy to find it), walked up the winding stairs toward the Camera. There are a couple of rooms with explanatory exhibits and if you really want to dive deeply into this I’d recommend taking time to read the displays and watching the video. This visit to the Camera could serve as an intense college course into the dynamics of a typical Renaissance city state.

The Camera itself was commissioned by Ludovico Gonzaga and Andrea Mantegna spent years creating the frescoes for this room (not an enormous space). I won’t go into the fascinating details, here’s a very brief summary: the frescoes show several scenes—Ludovico is handed a letter by one of his officials, perhaps saying that Milan is requesting an alliance.

Ludovico’s wife and children surround him. Also at his feet is his dog, Rubino (= “Ruby” because of the color of the coat—there is a cute pamphlet in the bookstore called “Rubino Visits the Palace” for kids). Attendants of Ludovico are waiting; each man is wearing leggings, one leg is white and the other red, the red+white colors of the Gonzagas. Another scene: Ludovico receives one of his sons, who has just become a cardinal; other sons are present. One of them will become a bishop. More horses and dogs are shown.

The most amusing part of this masterpiece is the oculus. Way up at the top of the ceiling fresco are boys and girls and putti looking over the railing down at the spectator (= me and you). Three of them have balanced a flower pot on a stick across the opening of the oculus and they are about to topple it over so that it will fall on the heads of the spectators. Crazy Mantegna!

The museum guard in the Camera spent half an hour chatting with us about the details of this amazing work. We were the only visitors in the Camera, a great piece of luck.

Time for lunch at the Osteria across the street, and also time for a typing break.

EYWandBTV

We had a good light lunch (salad, fish) across the street from the Castello at the Osteria Piazza Sordello then went back and entered the Palazzo Ducale. This is a massive complex, 500 rooms constructed over several centuries. The Gonzagas filled it with paintings by the likes of Leonardo, Raphael, and Mantegna and pieces of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In the 1620s, in need of funds, the Duke sold many of the finest works to King Charles I of England. After he was overthrown and beheaded, Cromwell sold most of the pieces and they now grace major museums such as the Louvre and the Prado. Nevertheless, the palace is still a wondrous place.

We spent two or three hours slowly moving through the structure. I’ll mention just a few of the things we enjoyed: the collection of Greek and Roman sculpture (the bits which escaped the sale to England), including several pieces from the fourth and third century BCE.

Rubens’ very large work, “The Gonzaga in Adoration of the Holy Trinity,” is on display in one of the large halls. That is, most of the pieces of this work are displayed. During the Napoleonic conquest of Mantova, a French colonel sliced this work (about 15 feet by 20 feet in size) in half, horizontally. Then individual squares were cut out, one of the Gonzaga dog, one of one of the knights, and one of the Gonzaga family. Currently almost all of the pieces, large and small, are on display (some small parts of the painting, on each side, have disappeared). The palazzo museum owns the two largest pieces.

Toward the end of the marked itinerary of the visit we entered the small rooms of Isabella d’Este. A member of the powerful Ferrara dynasty, she spent her last years in these small quarters. They are like jewels. The ceiling of one of the rooms, richly carved, has a deep indigo background with gilded cross-beams. The walls of another room are covered in scenes composed of many pieces of inlaid wood.

Our heads full of Gonzaga wonders, we finally staggered out of the palace and went back to “our” palazzo for a rest.

EYWandBTV

Dinner at Lo Scalco Grasso. Excellent. Primi: bigoli with shrimp and roquefort + bean soup with small arancini of cod and a blob of airy mashed potatoes—this particular dish was really superb, sort of a Mantovan take on the French dish of brandade de more. Secondi: acorn-fed credo + guanciale with polenta. Dolci: pureed mountain nut semifreddo with salted caramel sauce. Valpolicella Ripasso. 95 euro.


THURSDAY October 19 - Mantova

We spent a long time at breakfast chatting with Signora Bini about many things Mantovan, then we walked to the centro for the weekly Thursday market. After wandering all around (the market stalls covered many blocks) we had a good piadina of crude ham, arugula, and gooey squacquerone cheese (sp?). Then a slow walk south to the Palazzo Te.

We passed Mantegna’s house but an art exhibition was being prepared and the building was closed til next week.

The Palazzo Te was built in the 1520s by Federico II Gonzaga purely as a pleasure palace. It was never designed as a palace to be lived in. There’s no kitchen, for example; all the food was prepared elsewhere and brought to the palace.

The palace is the supreme achievement of Giulio Romano and shows the beginning of a Mannerist tweaking of the classical architectural rules of the Renaissance. Romano has covered the structure with playful twists and jokes: in one of the courtyards, some of the stones of the cornice work drop down from the horizontal line; in one or two of the large doorways, the keystone of the arch projects upward totally out of proportion to the rest of the doorway; some of the pediments split apart slightly.

The palace has many large halls, all of them richly decorated with frescoes and gilded ceilings. It is surprising that almost all of these frescoes and decorations have survived intact, since various armies swept through the palace and it was largely abandoned in the 19th century, although gradually the Austrian imperial government established ownership (Austria have grabbed a large swatch of northern Italy after the end of the Napoleonic wars) and, later, the Italian state.

Some comments on just a few of the palace halls… The Sala di Troia has a magnificent gilded ceiling with frescoes of the Trojan war on all of the walls. The Sala die Cavalli, with another magnificent gilded ceiling, has paintings of the Gonzaga’s favorite horses. They were great horse breeders and their horses were prized throughout Europe. They would often give a horse to another ruler with whom they wanted an alliance. The horses would be brought individually into this large hall in order to have their fresco “portraits” painted.

The Sala di Amore e Psyche is an R-rated hall, with frescoes detailing many gods, goddesses, and satyrs having way too much naughty fun.

The Sala dei Giganti is a tour de force, with the corners of the hall curving inward and all of the walls merging into the ceiling, with frescoes of gods destroying the palace of the giants, broken columns tumbling down, giants yelling in anger and pain. Not quite a moment of classical Renaissance harmony but lots of fun, certainly fun for Federico and his party-goers.

Dinner that evening at Tiratappi, a restaurant highly praised on various web sites, but we found the seafood we selected (sardines, grouper, and seppia/cuttlefish) to be acceptable but with too much fussing-about by the chef. My preference for seafood is to avoid doing too much to it, cook it, lemon on top, and let it be.

Nonconformist

It sounds lovely.

OReilly

I am really enjoying this! I had wanted to visit Mantua on my last visit but did not have the time.

yestravel

Enjoying your TR. Mantova is such a lovely town. We also stayed at Palazzo Arrivabene which was incredible.

Paqngo

Following along and enjoying the trip. Mantova sounds so lovely.

EYWandBTV

Forgot to add our pre-dinner aperitif at Caravatti, apparently a Mantova tradition. In business since 1865 and still run by the same family, they make their special Caravatti cocktail according to a secret formula. I’m guessing something like Campari and red vermouth and a little spritz. Very tasty. They also bring you free small panini of anchovies and butter, which make the cocktails go down way too easy!

Okay, time to move on from Mantova over to Ravenna…

FRIDAY October 20 - to Ravenna

We enjoyed our last breakfast with Signora Bini and a new guest from the Bari region. She and the Signora regaled us with their views of Italians: still a fiercely local people, each town and region possessing its own dialect— Signora: “Bergamo is not that far to the north of us and when they speak in their dialect I can’t understand a word they’re saying!” and our Bari guest: “The Italians are not Catholic, we are still pagan, with just a little bit of Catholic decoration on top…” Whatever the truth of these observations, we all agreed that you’ll never be bored in Italy.

We started our train trip to Ravenna, involving three legs by region ales, to Nogara, then to Bologna, then to Ravenna, just under four hours. It was a misty morning and we rolled through flat farmland and little towns. Fascinating to see many many people from Africa, some apparently Italian citizens (e.g. school girls chatting away in Italian with their classmates as afternoon school let out and they returned to the next village) and some perhaps agricultural workers? And everyone on the trains and in the stations just going about their business. So good to see in light of the crisis in the Mediterranean as people flee in little boats toward Italy, many of them dying at sea.

We arrived in Ravenna about 4:30 pm. The train station area is quite different from its Mantovan counterpart, with green parks and trees in front of the station. But this, unfortunately, is because this area was heavily bombed toward the end of World War II, and Ravenna’s oldest church, San Giovanni Evangelista, built by Galla Placidia, was 2/3 destroyed. Now rebuilt and restored, but almost all of the original mosaics were lost.

==>The hotel: Palazzo Bezzi, on Via Roma, just three blocks from the station. Outstanding hotel, modern and elegant inside, excellent service all around.

After settling in, we walked around the centro a little and then went for dinner to the Trattoria La Rustica. This was so far the best dinner of the trip and one of our best ever.

Antipasti: stuffed zucchini flowers with parmesan crisps. Primi: capelletti al ragu + tagliatelle con funghi porcini (in season now). Secondi: roasted rabbit and potatoes. Dolci: panna cotta with caramelized figs and intensely chocolate little round cake on top.

Wine: our owner/waiter patiently discussed wines with us and we finally settled on a regional red, Forli Rosso Nero 2015, really good. Digestivo: a regional clear liqueur called Il Luigino, using an herb called erba luigia, which Wikipedia tells me is in the family of lemon beebrush, whatever that is. In any case, delicious and a perfect ending to a perfect dinner. Oh yes, the bill…..all of 75 euros, but we saw that he had forgotten a couple of things and we bumped it up to 85. A great introduction to Ravenna.

Jennifer_Travels

Following along. I visited Bologna back in March & am already trying to figure out when I can return to visit more of the surrounding area.

EYWandBTV

Yes, these places are beautiful and not crushed by hordes of visitors, even in the most famous sites such as San Vitale.

EYWandBTV

SATURDAY October 21 - Ravenna

After exercising great restraint in the midst of the extensive breakfast spread of the Palazzo Bezzi, we set out to explore the various UNESCO sights of Ravenna — eight of them! We’ll see how much storage space is in our old brains’ hard drive.

Even for a history buff, Ravenna presents a dizzying challenge. Although it was begun as a Roman colony in the first century BCE, and in the early years of Augustus’ reign became the naval base for the imperial fleet of the eastern Mediterranean, its claim to fame today lies in the magnificent buildings and mosaics from the period 400 - 600 CE.

In order to get a handle on the historical context, before we started visiting the sites, I created a rough cheat sheet which I continued to reference as we made our way through the town. Herewith, FWIW…

Early 400s: Imperial Ravenna, Orthodox: the city becomes the administrative capital of the western empire; Honorius emperor then his half-sister, Galla Placidia, regent. The dominant religion is what we call today “orthodox” but I find it more interesting to call these folks “Trinitarians”. They believed in the developing doctrine of three-persons-inside-one-deity, and this had been the officially sanctioned version of Christianity for a hundred years. However…the “Unitarians” were active, the Arians, believers in a single deity who sent Jesus as divinely inspired messenger, but Jesus was not divine. The Unitarian/Arians would play a major role in Ravenna’s history in just a few decades.

***The Orthodox buildings remaining today: the Neonian Baptistery (also called the Orthodox Baptistery) and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (although archeologists do not think she was buried here, but rather in Rome, although the burial place has never been determined).

Early 500s: the Arian Kingdom of Theodoric: now the Western Roman Empire is no more. In the past thirty years a fascinating reexamination of the end of the western empire has created a new perspective on this chapter, led by the brilliant English historian Peter Brown. The story which I and most folks learned, I suspect, was that “the Roman Empire ended in 476 when a German general overthrew the last emperor Romulus Augustulus”. Bang. The end.

After the extensive work of Prof. Brown and his colleagues, we now have two, or three, ways of looking at this. There is the old Crash-Bang-The-End theory. Then there is the Brown-and-colleagues Crumble-Crumble theory. Some very interesting work has been produced here. Example, an Italian historian, I forget his name, dug into the surviving documents of the period around 476, and behold: there is no mention of “The Fall” — nothing, nada. It’s as if it were just a question of changing the name plates on the office door.

The third theory: a blend of #1 and #2, sort of Crash-Crumble-Crash-Crumble.

The significance for a Ravenna visitor is this: Germanic soldiers had been actively recruited for many years by Rome for its armies, and by the mid-400s many Germanic generals played important roles. They frequently seized power, placing their puppet emperors on the throne, only to see them overthrown by another general with another puppet. Such was the case with poor Augustulus, who was only a teenager. The Germanic general Odoacer pushed him aside, did not kill him but instead sent him to a palace in Naples and even gave him a lifetime pension! Odoacer established his capital in Ravenna and then sent the imperial insignia to the emperor in the east, Constantinople, and actually pledged allegiance to him. End of the western empire but continuation of the eastern empire.

Oadacer was killed a few years later by the Ostrogothic leader Theodoric, who then established a very important kingdom headquartered in Ravenna. Theodoric and his fellow Goths, now settled in the region, were Arians, a minority amidst an orthodox majority, but Theodoric is a tolerant king throughout his rule and both religions thrive during his reign. Although Theodoric was illiterate, he supported the construction of some of Ravenna’s most beautiful buildings. He signed documents “TR” for Teodorico Rex. You can see the TR inscription on some of the buildings.

***The Arian buildings remaining today, plus one Orthodox building: San Vitale, Sant Apollinare Nuovo, the so-called Palace of Theodoric (remains uncovered recently, not the tall facade facing Via Roma), the Arian Cathedral (now Santo Spirito), and the Mausoleum of Theodoric. And one orthodox building dates from this period: the Chapel, or Oratory, of Sant Andrea.

Mid-500s and later: Byzantine-Orthodox rule in Ravenna: the eastern emperor Justinian and his empress Theodora conquer the Arian kingdom and establish control over parts of central Italy.

***The Byzantine buildings remaining today: Sant Apollinare Nuovo (although the structure had already been built by Theodoric and the mosaics created, Justinian’s artists removed the images of Theodoric and his officials in the segment portraying his palace and replaced them with simple images of palace curtains) and Santo Spirito (Justianian converted the Arian cathedral into an orthodox church).

Almost all of these buildings have stunning mosaics. The iconography is fascinating, with subtle differences between the Arian and the Orthodox Trinitarian portrayals of Jesus, God, and God the Father. Also fascinating is the complete absence of portrayals of the Crucifixion. Instead, Jesus and God are portrayed as powerful and protective forces. There are lovely images of sheep, birds drinking from bowls of water, and other symbols of grace and divine care.

Amazing that so much has survived 1500 years almost intact.

dreamon

I have so enjoyed your trip report so far and I'm sure it will be useful for our own holiday next year. I will be interested to hear what you think of Brisighella as thinking of visiting there. Thank you very much for sharing.

cafegoddess

Following along. I am enjoining reading your trip report.