Poggio Renatico
On the road between Ferrara and Bologna, not far from the river Reno, stands the town of Poggio Renatico, whose name is said to come from the word “podium”, meaning an ‘artificial heap of earth’ on the valley floor.
The area around Poggio Renatico is still characterised by marsh and woodland today. The landscape is dotted with towers and castles, built by the people of Bologna from the High Middle Ages onwards to protect the land and give them exclusive control of the local fishing and river trade. These defensive structures also protected them against unwanted incursions by the neighbouring city of Ferrara.
From the 13th century onwards, the lords of Poggio were the Lambertini, a prominent Bolognese family with links to the saint Beata Imelda and Pope Benedict XIV; for this reason the town is also called Poggio de’ Lambertini. Towards the middle of the 16th century, Poggio and Bologna witnessed a series of gruesome events, all closely connected and determined by the same causes. On 8 February 1541 Cornelio Lambertini, the lord of Poggio, died in Bologna, perhaps by poisoning. Five days later the same fate befell his mother, Maddalena. A year after that, Andreghetto Lambertini was killed with a blunderbuss. Shortly afterwards a certain Castron, a trusted friend of the family, only evaded a similar attack by a miracle. For this last attempted murder, three men from Ferrara were beheaded on 14 March 1542 in Bologna. It is thought that the instigator may have been Girolamo Borgia, son of the Duke of Valentinois, Cesare Borgia. Four years later, in 1546, Girolamo did kill Castron by stabbing him, at Porta San Giorgio in Ferrara. Despite all these violent attacks, the Lambertini family managed to remain in power as lords of Poggio Renatico.
Once upon a time the small cluster of houses were built close to the walls and archways of the castle, for protection. The old castle, which until 2012 was the seat of the municipal offices, was built as early as 1475 by Egano Lambertini. The alterations made in the 1500s by the Lambertini family were intended to ‘gentrify’ the forbidding exterior of the castle, which became a noble residence. An inscribed stone below the tower on the existing palace shows that Cornelio and Cesare Lambertini ordered the building to be restructured in 1584, so it could be used by the governor of the fiefdom and community of Poggio Renatico. The old palace was almost completely refurbished around the year 1660, although a series of decorative friezes depicting fields and hunting scenes still remain from the original building. The castle, as it appeared in the past, was never described as a single building but as a complex consisting of the palace, the church and a series of smaller structures and outbuildings. The oldest surviving image of the castle can be seen in a sketch taken from a handwritten book of drawings, dated 1578. The author is unknown. The drawing entitled "Poggio de S. C. Lambertini" shows a cluster of buildings with a central tower and drawbridge. To the right of the tower stands a Romanesque church with a row of smaller buildings next to it. To the left, the remains of a second tower are visible, with traces of an arched window: the single row of windows indicates that there was only one floor, while the vertical slits in the basement floor indicate the utility rooms, which at the time were on the ground floor but are now in the basement.
The central clock tower appears to be bigger than the one visible today, standing flush with the façade and encircled by a lower building, crenellations and a drawbridge. A brick walkway, also crenellated, joined the castle to a ravelin and drawbridge leading onto the road. The entire complex is surrounded by a moat. A third smaller wooden bridge led to what must have been the kitchen garden. The structure is 25 m high, with an elevation of four floors. It was once the location of the castle’s prisons. The earthquake that hit Emilia Romagna in May 2012 destroyed the tower, which has now been partially rebuilt from steel, to accommodate the old clock.
The nearby Fornasini Tower, also known as the ‘Poggio’ or ‘Ortolano’ tower, dates from the 13th century, when it was used as a watchtower by the Lambertini family. It was acquired several centuries later by the Fornasini family, another dynasty whose story is also closely intertwined with Poggio Renatico. In 1963, during restoration works carried out to repair structural damage caused by lightning, the building’s owner at the time, Carlo Francesco Fornasini, unearthed some interesting Renaissance frescoes in the external alcoves. Now removed and restored, the frescoes can be admired in the National Art Gallery in Ferrara. The frescoes date from the 16th century and have been attributed to Amico Aspertini or “Il Mazzolino”. Visitors to the Rossetti palace in Ferrara will find a series of six pictures, which in 1964 were heavily restored to improve their poor state of repair. The six pictures depict the Muse Urania and Hope; a group of three people; two people and a monkey standing next to an open fireplace; four people and an owl, and a scene that is completely impossible to decipher. The meaning of the fragments depicting groups of people, surrounded by what appear to be obscure literary and necromantic symbols, is still a mystery. It is difficult to make out the extent of the pictures, which must have been far larger. The figure of Urania would suggest the presence of the other Muses and it is possible that ‘Hope’ would have been painted alongside the other ‘Virtues’. As no surveys were taken when the frescoes were removed, it is also impossible to determine their original position or intended function. The attribution of the frescoes to Amico Aspertini has long been debated by eminent art history scholars, but would confirm the significance given to them by the Lambertini nobles in the 16th century: Cornelio Lambertini, elected senator by Julius II in 1506 and named count of Poggio by the same pope in 1510, had called into his service one of the most influential figures of the Po Valley at the time.
At some distance from the castle, close to what is now the cemetery, stands a fine example of a Romanesque church, which was elevated to abbey status in 1664 and dedicated to San Michele Arcangelo (St Michael Archangel), but later deconsecrated. The building’s primitive appearance is captured in a sketch dating from 1578 and attributed to Egnazio Danti. The drawing is part of a manuscript in the Gozzadini collection kept at the Archiginnasio municipal library in Bologna, and recently published. In 1592, the church underwent very extensive restructuring works and is now an impressive building, almost double the size of the existing church but still with the original Romanesque style.
Poggio Renatico, Torre Fornasini
Coronella
The name Coronella brings to mind ancient stories of mysterious marshland. Between 1526 and 1604, the town replaced the ancient Torre del Fondo, built by the citizens of Ferrara along the canal towards Bologna.
The town was included by Ercole I of the House of Este in the reclamation of the area around San Martino, within the embankment or ‘coronella’ flanking the Ladino, leading to the Torre del Fondo and running alongside the Uccellino tower to San Martino as far as Marrara. In the year 1500, the Pasqualetti family, which held large estates in the area, erected a church dedicated to the Holy Spirit. In the mid-17th century, the village was devastated by floods. When in 1767 the Reno was channelled into the artificial water course known as the ‘Cavo Benedettino’ the town stood once again on dry land.
Uccellino
The town of Uccellino is located along the main road at the turn-off for Poggio Renatico. The landscape is dominated by the Uccellino Tower, which was originally located along a major link road joining Bologna and Ferrara. The tower is what remains of an ancient castle built by the people of Bologna in 1242; its name comes from the hunting falcon carved into one of the stones. But according to Franceschini, Bolognese records of the time indicate that before the tower was built, this place was known as ‘Ocellino’; this appears to coincide with the ‘Ogianello’ referred to on the pseudo papal bull, on the boundary with the territory of Bologna between Malalbergo and Madonna dei Boschi. A document from the Hedri archives indicates that on 30 May 1837, excavations carried out close to the Uccellino Tower unearthed the foundations of the ancient castle.
Like the famous towers of Bologna, this tower has a similar structure with few apertures in the exposed terracotta brickwork and tapering in the mid-section and is crowned by the Guelph-style merlons. The solid, bulky structure indicates its defensive purpose, and indeed this tower has withstood many assaults and invasions over the centuries.
The tower was donated by the pope to Galeazzo Marescotti de’ Calvi, a member of an ancient Bolognese family of Ghibelline persuasion, and a man of letters, government and arms. In 1443, Galeazzo Marescotti successfully liberated Annibale I Bentivoglio, who had been imprisoned in the castle of Varano (near Parma) by Niccolò Piccinino, the lord put in charge of the city by the House of Visconti. On returning to Bologna in secret, Annibale Bentivoglio led a revolt by all the leading families of Bologna, to rout out Piccinino. The families succeeded in their mission, and the Visconti troops elected Annibale as lord of the city in 1445. But Galeazzo Marescotti, who had orchestrated the Bentivoglios’ rule of Bologna, was not well rewarded. At the age of almost ninety, he saw his sons and grandsons slain by a descendant of Annibale. Annibale was succeeded by his son Giovanni II Bentivoglio, who became lord of Bologna in 1464. Hermes, the younger son of Giovanni II, ordered the execution of several members of the Marescotti family, who had become rivals of the Bentivoglio and had organised a plot to hand them over to Cesare Borgia. After a massacre in the streets of Bologna, Hermes and an army of men set off in the direction of Ferrara, as far as the Uccellino Tower. On 3 May 1501, two of Galeazzo’s young grandsons, Antenore and Mariscoto, had taken refuge in the tower to escape the furious and bloody slaughter. Hermes, having reached the door with his brigade, called the two brothers down, offering peace and a pardon on behalf of the people of Bologna. The young brothers, heartened by these promises, came down to open the tower door— only for the one closest to Hermes to fall to the ground with a sword through his neck a few seconds later. His brother rushed to his aid but was also slain in cold blood. Hermes, followed by his men and still brandishing the sword, set off again towards Bologna.
But his control began to weaken when Alfonso d'Este, deaf to the protests of the Bolognese people, took advantage of the campaign to take bronze for his cannons (the same foundry also melted the statue of Julius II, sculpted and cast by Michelangelo, except for the head which was lost in the dungeons of the Estense Castle). Another reason why the Uccellino Tower lost its status is that the drainage of the land created a direct route to Poggio, through Chiesuol del Fosso, without having to travel around Torre Fossa and San Martino.
The "Diario Ferrarese" from January 1499 gives us this eloquent testimony: “vennero da Bologna per l’Occellino quattro fanti. Come furono al confine uno di loro quattro levò la runcha e taglio il collo agli altri tre e tolse loro i denari che avevano addosso e ritornò verso Bologna”.
Poggio Renatico, Torre dell'Uccellino
San Martino
Continuing in the direction of Ferrara, we come to the hamlet of San Martino. Set on a hillock amid vast expenses of valley and marshland, San Martino is in a strategic position between Ferrara and Bologna. For this reason, it became the subject of special attention from the Curia and the House of Este. Ercole I d’Este wrote in a letter to the Venetian High Council: “Nel 1494 passato, facessimo dare principio alla bonificazione delle terre incolte e paludose della San Martina.”.
The only overland route to Bologna was through the hills of San Martino and Uccellino, but it was lost in the 17th century. It is easy to see how this little town, being the only settlement on the road between Ferrara and Bologna, would be exposed to incursion and robbery. In 1242, the people of Bologna managed to fortify their boundaries, by building the Castle of Uccellino, of which the tower still stands today. After attacks by the people of Ferrara, the structure was damaged and had to be restored in 1303. The people of Bologna needed to preserve a secure route to Ferrara and to collect road tolls from travellers. It was believed that they would not relinquish possession of Torre del Fondo or Pontonara, not even temporarily. At any rate, in 1310 the fortifications were handed back to the people of Ferrara. The Torre del Fondo, which still stands today, was converted into a house, close to Coronella. As for the Torre della Pontonara, it is thought to have stood between the church in San Martino and Torre della Fossa, opposite the banks of the Sammartina river close to what was formerly the viable canal between Bologna and Ferrara.
In 1391, the marquis Alberto d’Este set off on a journey to Rome. On his return, arriving at the Torre della Pontonara, he was met with a jubilant crowd of locals. Alberto had not only obtained papal exemptions and favours, but most importantly he was bearing the papal bull that established the University of Ferrara, then called the “Studio generale”.
Torre della Fossa
Torre della Fossa was built as early as the 13th century, along the low-lying road built along the right-hand bank of the Po di Primaro. The poet Ariosto describes it in Orlando Furioso as a pleasant little place with a church, hostelry and a few shops. Its name comes from the ancient tower that once stood at the mouth of the canal between Bologna and Ferrara, on the Po di Primaro. Excavations in the year 1837 unearthed the foundations of Torre della Fossa along with several other rooms of the ancient castle.
In ancient times, it was easier to travel over water than land, to reach the outlying towns around Ferrara. The fossa (channel) began at the tower on the Primaro and reached as far as San Martino, where it split into two forks, one to Montalbano and the other towards Poggio, both heading in the direction of Bologna. This made Torre Fossa a gathering point and a place of embarkation and disembarkation. Throughout history, famous names have met each other or travelled through Torre della Fossa.
This was where, on 24 February 1452, King Frederik III and his magnificent court embarked on a journey to Rome, where he was crowned emperor by Pope Nicholas V. On his return, on 10 May 1452, Frederik was received here by the marquis Borso d’Este, named duke of Modena and Reggio by the new emperor.
On 1 February 1502, there was a memorable encounter at Torre della Fossa, when Lucrezia Borgia escorted by her many courtiers arrived by boat, on her way from Rome to visit the duke Alfonso d’Este whom she had already married by arrangement. The bride disembarked on the shores of the canal, kissing the hand of the duke who gave her an equally warm welcome. She then re-boarded the sumptuous bucintour (state barge) of the Este family, which was headed for Ferrara, while a large gathering of Este courtiers and gentlemen climbed up the embankments to wave her off. That evening, Lucrezia Borgia stayed at the palace of Alberto d’Este in Borgo di San Luca, on the opposite shore of the Po, facing Porta San Paolo which is now known as Porta Paola. At 2 pm the next day, the bride crossed the bridge at Castel Tedaldo and entered the city.
Along the road to Ferrara, past the church is the beautiful Casa Ferialda, which stands on a raised ground floor. Formerly a Barillari property and now owned by the Arzenton family, it has a 17th-century frontage.
Ferrara
The sights on the Towers Trail to be found in Ferrara are:
Baluardo dell’Amore
Set in the curtain wall, the ‘Bastion of Love’ was built by the duke Borso d'Este in the mid-15th century. The Bastion as we see it today has the characteristic “ace of spades” outline (an upside-down heart shape), but was actually built more than a hundred years later. It was Alfonso II d'Este who between 1578 and 1585 undertook extensive work to reinforce the southern fortifications close to the River Po, based on designs by engineers and military builders such as Cornelio Bentivoglio, Marcantonio Pasi, Giulio Thiene and Giovanni Battista Aleotti.
Sottomura Est e degli Angeli
The walls in this section reveal much about medieval castle defences, and it is still possible to see the portals, bastions, towers, embrasures and cannon loops. The eastern section of the wall was designed by Alfonso I d’Este in the early 16th century, while the southern part has four imposing 'ace of spades’ bastions, built by Alfonso II between 1575 and 1585.
Ferrara, mura
Palazzo dei Diamanti and the National Art Gallery
Founded in 1836, the National Art Gallery in Ferrara was the first public collection of paintings by local artists. This modern museum was opened to prevent the city’s artistic and cultural heritage from being lost, and to preserve it for future generations. It is home to the 16th-century frescoes removed from the Fornasini tower in Poggio Renatico; they have now been restored and are attributed to Amico Aspertini or Mazzolino.
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti
Estense Castle
The architectural origins of the Estense Castle can be found in the ancient watchtower, built as long ago as the early 13th century and set in the walls to the north of the medieval city, close to the Porta dei Leoni (Lions’ Gate). The design of this huge tower was very simple: it has a square plan and is built from brick. Inside, each floor is made up of a single room, with the ceiling slabs supported by masonry barrel vaults. Externally, the walls have tapered skirting with small stone-set windows protected by ironwork. The battlements rest directly on the perimeter walls, while the four-pitch roof is covered in clay tiles on a structure of wooden joists. In the mid-14th century, the House of Este owned a large part of Ferrara, reaching as far as the city walls. During the same century, they converted the watchtower into an impressive fortress to offer greater defence for the Lions’ Gate, symbol of their status and power. In 1385, the architect Bartolino da Novara designed the castle using the pre-existing Lions’ Fortress as a blueprint, and combined it with three new towers. The towers are arranged in a rectangular plan and are linked by lower buildings encircling an inner courtyard. For around seventy years, the building's appearance remained unchanged, as did its purely military function: the castle contained barracks for the soldiery of the House of Este as well as dark, dank dungeons. From 1450 onwards, under the rule of the marquis Borso d'Este, some of the rooms were used as residential quarters and for official purposes. During the duchy of Ercole I, from 1479 onwards, the duchess Eleonora of Aragon moved her court to the Castle permanently. The change of part of the first floor to residential use led to further modifications to the Castle, which gradually took on the appearance of a ducal palace. From 1492 onwards, with the creation of the urban planning scheme known as the Addizione Erculea, the castle found itself at the heart of the city, fusing together the medieval and Renaissance quarters. At this time the famous Lions’ Gate and connecting walls were demolished to make way for the new urban scheme of Ferrara. In the early 16th century, under the duchy of Alfonso I, work continued on the alterations to St Michael's Castle, which gradually took on the appearance of a stately residence used by the ducal court. The duke only converted the upper floors of the building, leaving unaltered the lower floors which retained their purely defensive purpose.
Ferrara, Castello Estense
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