One of the symbols of Bologna, the giant statue of the god Neptune, Nettuno in Italian, crowns a fountain of sculptures in the centre of Piazza del Nettuno. Completed in 1567, the fountain was commissioned by Cardinal Carlo Borromeo who assigned the project to the architect Tommaso Laureti. However, it was the sculptor Jean Boulogne (known as Giambologna or Giovanni da Bologna), famous for the sculpture of the Rape of the Sabine Women in Florence, who created the celebrated bronze statue of Nettuno to top Laureti's design. Locally referred to as il Gigante (the Giant), the god Neptune stands majestically above delightful sculptures of cherubs and nereids with four water spouts representing the major rivers of four continents.
Located in the most ancient part of Bologna, within a Roman street plan, il Mercato di Mezzo has been Bologna's traditional market are for at least two millennia. While the types of businesses have mostly changed in modern times, the names of the streets have eternalised the traditional businesses that were once thriving. Streets names, such as Pescherie, Calzolerie, Orefici, and Clavature, translate to fishermongers, shoemakers, jewellers, and key makers. This area, which is also known as il Quadrilatero, is located behind Palazzo dei Banchi on Piazza Maggiore, and Piazza della Mercanzia, just south of le Due Torri. Nowadays, the shops in the area sell mostly delicious-looking fresh products, as well as gourmet Italian food and wine products.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, was born in Bologna in 1922 by a middle-class family, where he will spend seven years of his life ("Beautiful and sweet Bologna! I have spent seven years, perhaps the most beautiful ..."). Here Pier Paolo cultivated new passions, such as football and fuelled his passion for reading includes several volumes of used books at the stalls of the Porch of Death. Pasolini has a fond memory of the city and he is impressed by the large square (Piazza Maggiore), heart of the city center of civil and religious life in Bologna. He remembers the great unfinished cathedral, made of traditional red brick and the lace that extends to the houses and the surrounding roofs, which make Bologna worthy of the name “La Rossa”. He often recalls the Town Hall, with its solemn ogival arcades, and the famous Portici, which run in the city for 40 km, from the elegant Church of the Servants of Piazza Malpinghi, not only an architectural element but the essence and the mood of the city. During the summer months they are an excellent protection from the sun and during the coldest months a perfect shelter from the rain. Bologna is to him a fascinating city with a simple living, simple but beautiful, which give rise to new ideas and interests. At Liceo Galvani in Bologna his school career continued with excellent results. He enrolled as, just seventeen, the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bologna and discovered new passions, such as Romance languages, especially the aesthetics of fine arts. While attending the Film Club of Bologna where he became fond with the cycle of films of René Clair, he devoted himself to the sport of football and was promoted to captain of the Faculty of Arts, he was cycling with friends and attending summer camps organized by the University of Bologna. Here one can see “Bologna la Dotta”, with the presence of one of the oldest university in Italy which continues today to be attended by numerous Italian and foreign students, and to maintain its role as a very active cultural center, always open to new and creative ideas. And in this Bologna, so lively and changing, Pasolini realizes he cannot come back, not for a fault, but for a value: the richness of life, cultural exchange and ideas that make Bologna so interesting and always different.
The Second World War (1939 -45), unfortunately left deep and bitter marks in different places and people... sad and moving stories of innocent people killed during an unprecedented war for research political and government supremacy... A city in particular, Marzabotto, in Emilia Romagna, was sadly marked by a terrible and unspeakable massacre committed against its people by the hand German... was, and is, considered one of the greatest massacres of civilians in that horrendous war. In a pitiful attempt to control the advance of the partisan guerrillas (especially the Red Star commanded by a partisan called 'Wolf') who fought against the fascio-Nazi control, the German soldiers shot more than 1830 civilians without mercy. The desperate population, and feeling the danger, took refuge in the church of Santa Maria Assunta... in cold blood, the Nazi soldiers arrived gunning and killing right there, three civilians and the priest Fr Ubaldo Marchioni, the rest of the inhabitants of the municipality were taken to the cemetery where men, women, elderly people and at least 50 children were ruthlessly killed... I invite you to know this historic city, asking everyone that, once you arrive there, visit the place and that you pray, whatever your faith may be, in honor of the lost souls of that 29 September 1944.
