Collegio Morigi

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Collegio Morigi, former Palazzo Scotti da Fombio
Via Taverna
Piacenza, May 2024

“One of the grandest historic homes in Piacenza dating back to the second half of the 15th century; it hosted illustrious figures such as the Duke of Milan M. Sforza in 1513 and the Marquis of Mantua F. Gonzaga in 1521. The palace, which originally extended to Vicolo S. Nazaro, was built between 1479 and 1495, when the property was divided between two branches of the same family. The façade on Via Taverna retains its original 15th century appearance with a terracotta façade and a stone frieze that runs under the windows on the first floor; the marble portal sculpted in 1497 is of great value. The internal courtyard has an elegant terracotta portico with stone columns and capitals; in one of the corners stands the ancient tower decorated with sandstone mullioned windows. Since the 18th century the interiors have been enriched with decorations, while the grand staircase dates back to 1825. In 1864 the Scotti family sold the building to the executors of the will of the doctor G.Morigi who wanted to make it a college for the city's youth.” (Palazzo Scotti da Fombio, FAI)

Cappella del Battistero

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Cappella del Battistero (Baptistery Chapel)
San Giovanni in Canale
Via Croce
Piacenza, May 2024

“On the upper front wall, an oval painting depicting the Circumcision stands out, by the renowned painter Gervasio Gatti, also known as ‘Il Soiaro,’ who was active primarily in Cremona in the 16th century. This exquisite work, dated 1585, rich in detail and chromatic appeal, was transferred to the Baptistery chapel after a long journey that saw it stolen and subsequently rediscovered in 1920. The painting exudes a powerful emotional charge, with intensely rendered faces that convey the emotions of the depicted figures to the viewer, with particular emphasis on the tender bond between Jesus and his Mother Mary. The lunette below features a fresco of The Baptism of Jesus, by the Piacenza painter Luciano Ricchetti, commissioned in 1959 following the chapel's transformation into a baptistery. Two marble columns at the corners support the statues of Faith and Charity, attributed to the sculptor Giuliano Mozzani and created between 1730 and 1734, adding further decorative elements of great refinement to the chapel. On the left wall of the chapel is a large marble epigraph from 1742 dedicated to Count Ranuccio Douglas Scotti of Agazzano, the work of Piacenza sculptor Gian Antonio Seri, which testifies to the noble Scotti family's connection to the church of San Giovanni in Canale. At the center of the chapel is the 1960 baptismal font, crafted from pink Verona marble by Piacenza sculptor Pietro Daveri, while an elegant 18th-century gate gracefully encloses this sacred space.” (>La Cappella del Battistero nella chiesa di San Giovanni in Canale, Il Nuovo Giornale)

Dragon lamp

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Dragon lamp
Palazzo Comunale (Palazzo Gotico)
Piazza del Cavalli
Piacenza, May 2024

“In 1281, the ghibellin Alberto Scoto, wanted to build the palace and sent for four architects from Piacenza: Pietro da Cagnano, Negro De Negri, Gherardo Bellman and Pietro da Borghetto. Following the first project, the palace should have been quadrangular, but work was stopped due to an epidemic plague. Only the north side of the palace was finished. The result is an excellent example of civil ogive architecture in lombard Gothic style.” (Palazzo Comunale, Wikipedia)

Compianto sul Cristo morto

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“Compianto sul Cristo morto” by Domenico Reti, 1680
Basilica di San Francesco d'Assisi
Piazza Cavalli
Piacenza, May 2024

“The monumental plastic group was originally placed inside a fake cave against the left wall of the ambulatory; its placement in the former Chapel of S. Protaso, restored for the occasion, dates back to the autumn of 1940. Such an interesting baroque document could not escape criticism and tradition has tended to include it in the Mochi catalogue (Aurini 1927; Martinelli 1968); others have spoken of the environment of Begarelli (Collobi 1939 catalog) or of Leonardo Reti (Oretti). The definitive attribution, however, is that of E. Riccomini, who referred the group to Domenico Reti.” (Compianto sul Cristo morto, Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali)

Piacenza Cathedral

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Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e Santa Giustina
Piazza Duomo
Piacenza, May 2024

“The structure has a Latin cross basilica plan, with three naves and three bays. The naves are divided from each other by twenty-five massive cylindrical pillars and end with semi-cylindrical apses. The transept, whose axis is not perpendicular to that of the nave, is also divided into three naves. At the intersection between the nave and the transept is the octagonal dome inside which is the dome, decorated with seventeenth-century frescoes depicting the prophets, the work of Guercino and Morazzone. Some of the pillars were built by the paratici, the trade corporations, or by individual citizens. Seven of these have, as a signature, some small panels with the representation of the association's activity. The name of the paratico is also reported on the panel, written in Latin, almost as if to indicate ownership: Haec est columna furnariorum. In some cases the written signature reports not only the name of the paratico, but also the name of the citizen who sponsored its construction, such as Hugo tinctor or magister Johannes, the latter a cart builder.” (Duomo di Piacenza, Wikipedia)

Chiostro di Sant'Antonino

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Chiostro (Cloister)
Basilica di Sant'Antonino (Basilica of St. Antoninus)
Piazza Sant'Antonino
Piacenza, May 2024

“The beautiful Cloister of our basilica opens on the right side of the church. It was built in 1483 in Renaissance style in place of an older medieval cloister, but the current layout is due to the intervention of the architect Giulio Ulisse Arata in the 1930s. In particular, the side of the cloister towards the basilica was rebuilt following the model of the other two ancient sides, after the demolition of the baroque chapels that existed at the time. It has three porticoed sides with cross vaults and a series of capitals above the columns, all different from each other. They have the shape of an inverted bell: some are decorated with acanthus leaves; others have simple lanceolate leaves with smooth edges; still others are adorned with festoons. On the garden side, many capitals feature the coat of arms of the martyr Antonino or the dice emblem of Piacenza. The fourth side to the south was demolished to create a passage between the square and the church of S. Vincenzo. In its place there is a simple wall with a door that allows the connection with the outside. The central space, almost square, is green with an octagonal well in the center.” (The cloister, Basilica of St. Antonino)

Papa Gregorio X

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Papa Gregorio X by Giorgio Groppi, 1998
Giardino Gregorio X
Via Scalabrini
Piacenza, May 2024

“Pope Gregory X (Latin: Gregorius X; c. 1210 – 10 January 1276), born Teobaldo Visconti, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 September 1271 to his death and was a member of the Secular Franciscan Order. He was elected at the conclusion of a papal election that ran from 1268 to 1271, the longest papal election in the history of the Catholic Church. He convened the Second Council of Lyon and also made new regulations in regards to the papal conclave. Gregory was beatified by Pope Clement XI in 1713 after the confirmation of his cultus.” (Pope Gregory X, Wikipedia)

Camillo Tassi

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Camillo Tassi, 1913
Giardini Margherita
Via Alberoni
Piacenza, May 2024

“Camillo Tassi (Piacenza, 23 September 1849 – Piacenza, 6 March 1912) was an Italian lawyer and politician. Graduated in law in Turin, he was a city councilor, education assessor and provincial councilor in Piacenza. A member of parliament for three legislatures in the far left of Felice Cavallotti, he was an appreciated criminal lawyer, a tenacious defender of the weakest sections of the population. He was second to Cavallotti himself in the duel that caused his death.” (Camillo Tassi, Wikipedia)

Valente Faustini

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Valente Faustini (and a ‘batusa’) by Oreste Labò, 1929
Giardini Margherita
Via Alberoni
Piacenza, May 2024

“In the Giardini Margherita, in front of the train station, there is a monument to the Piacenza dialect poet, Valente Faustini. A strange monument because it depicts a half-length portrait of the poet celebrated here and a full-length portrait of one of his poetic creations, his most famous: the batusa. A term that could be translated, with all the appropriate approximations, as the brazen one, the impudent one. A young woman who is not afraid of anyone, knows her reasons and intends to assert them. She was (or rather they were, because there were many batusa in Piacenza) a feminist antelitteram, a feminist in the flesh who was alive and well before feminism began to be talked about, not only in Italy, but also in the world.” (The feminist who didn't need male laws, Il Piacenza Blog)

Grattacielo dei Mille

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Grattacielo dei Mille, 1960
Via dei Mille
Piacenza, May 2024

“The Grattacielo dei Mille (Skyscraper of the Thousand) was built about ten years after the Velasca Tower and the Pirellone in Milan. It is the tallest building in Piacenza and the fifth in Emilia Romagna. It was built where the Rebora Mill once stood. It has a total volume of 90,000 cubic meters, including two floors of underground garages. It is equipped with the fastest elevators in the entire province, which travel at 2.5 m/s.” (Grattacielo dei Mille, Grattacieli d'Italia)

Gian Domenico Romagnosi

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Gian Domenico Romagnosi by Cristoforo Marzaroli, 1867
Piazzetta San Francesco
Piacenza, May 2024

“Gian Domenico Romagnosi (11 December 1761 – 8 June 1835) was an Italian philosopher, economist and jurist. Gian Domenico Romagnosi was born in Salsomaggiore Terme. He studied law at the University of Parma from 1782 to 1786. In 1791 he became the chief civil magistrate of Trento. In the late 18th and early 19th century Trento was successively under the rule of France, Italy and Austria. In 1799 Romagnosi was arrested in Innsbruck during fifteen months by the Austrians on account of his alleged sympathy with the French, but he was acquitted. In 1801 the French occupied Trento, and he was raised to the position of Secretary of the Higher Council. He was successively professor of law at Parma, Pavia, Pisa and Milan. After the fall of Napoleon he lost his position at the Milan university, but continued to lecture till 1817. In 1818 he was again tried for treason at Venice, and again acquitted. Carlo Cattaneo was his student and he was largely influenced by his thought. He died in Milan in 1835.” (Gian Domenico Romagnosi, Wikipedia)

Forse che sì, forse che no

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“Forse che sì, forse che no” (Maybe yes, maybe no)
Via Campagna
Piacenza, May 2024

“Regarding our city, some scholars have hypothesized that the epigraph was placed at the time of Napoleon, when on the other side of via San Tomaso there was the large female Monastery of the Holy Spirit, demolished in 1967/68. Cesare Zilocchi writes in the ‘Vocabolarietto di curiosità piacentine’, published by the Banca di Piacenza, that everything arose from a controversy over a balcony between the nuns of a convent located there (from 1615 to 1810). But the common people embroidered their own more salacious version. Behind the walls of the cloister, an unscrupulous abbess organized cheerful parties. The ecclesiastical authority then opened an investigation. Perhaps because they were unfounded slanders, perhaps because excellent names were implicated in the prurient affair, the investigation came to nothing but the curious epigraph still commemorates it. (Forse che sì, forse che no, Il Piacenza Blog)

San Giovanni in Canale

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San Giovanni in Canale
Via Croce
Piacenza, May 2024

“San Giovanni in Canale is a Gothic-style Roman Catholic church located on Via Croce 26 in central Piacenza, formerly associated with a Dominican monastery. The Dominican order, newly founded in 2016, arrived in Piacenza in 1220 and patronage soon found them a suitable site next to the Rio Beverora (an Ancient Roman canal that flowed into the Po River, that allowed them to establish a monastery and a church. They dedicated the church to St John the Baptist. This church was called ‘in canale’ to distinguish it from a similarly dedicated temple in town. With the enlargement of the San Giovanni in Canale, a nearby small church belonging to the Templars (Santa Maria del Tempio) was converted into an oratory attached to San Giovanni. This Dominican complex once housed the Inquisition tribunal. The structure, including the facade were rebuilt in 1522 in a Gothic style, with a large rose window. The church was suppressed by the French in 1797.” (San Giovanni in Canale, Wikipedia)

Palazzo Vescovile

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Palazzo Vescovile (Episcopal Palace)
Piazza Duomo
Piacenza, May 2024

“The Bishop's Palace stands next to the Cathedral, on the square of the same name. It was built in the first half of the sixteenth century, on the ruins of the dismantled church of San Giovanni de Domo, which dated back to the eighth century. It is believed that the Palace was built as part of the renovation of the square and other areas of the city, commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese (1534-49), in view of the assignment of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza to his son Pier Luigi. The original porticoed façade was demolished in 1858 and rebuilt shortly afterwards based on a design by the architect Tassini. Punctuated by three orders of windows and a smooth ashlar base, it is crowned at the corners by two allegorical sculptural groups and, in the centre, by a clock from 1898 which serves as the basis for the coat of arms of Pope Pius IX. After passing the portal - which has high talamoni on its sides - you reach the sixteenth-century internal courtyard, punctuated by porticoes with round arches, which house tombstones and fragments of sculptures removed from the Cathedral during the restorations carried out in the twentieth century.” (Palazzo Vescovile, Piacenza)

Church of San Paolo

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Church of San Paolo
Via Torta
Piacenza, May 2024

“The church of San Paolo in its current form dates back to 1686 and was built to a design by the architect Giacomo degli Agostini. In the single nave interior, rich in decorations, the main altar by Marco Aurelio Dosi (1733-1734) stands out. On the vault there is a pictorial cycle created between 1961 and 1963 by the painters Angelo Capelli and Luciano Ricchetti at the behest of the parish priest Adriano Dozza.” (Chiesa di San Paolo, Piacenzapace)

Church of St. Anne

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Church of St. Anne
Via Scalabrini
Piacenza, May 2024

“Po Valley Gothic architecture, in the form of a hall, in the 12th century it was a monastery entrusted to the Humiliati which, according to tradition, hosted Saint Roch of Montpellier in the 14th century, of which a painting and a statue are preserved. The façade was rebuilt in 1957 based on a design by the architect Camillo Guidotti; the apse, in the rear part of the church, was enlarged in 1500 and the six side altars were created in the seventeenth century, totally or partially closing the long ogival windows; the bell tower was raised in 1957 based on a design by the architect Pietro Berzolla. Of the stained glass windows, dating back to the 20th century, some are designed by the artist Trento Longaretti from Bergamo (Nativity, Crucifixion, Baptism of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows).” (Chiesa di Sant'Anna, Piacenzapace)

Nostra Signora di Guastafredda

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Nostra Signora di Guastafredda (Our Lady of Guastafredda)
Via San Corrado Confalonieri
Piacenza, May 2024

“At the end of the eighteenth century, Lotario Tomba, a well-known architect from Piacenza, was entrusted with the project of a chapel suitable for containing a Marian painting already highly venerated in the mid-seventeenth century, once positioned outside the Convent known as the Convent of the Snow. Still extant, the work depicts the Madonna and Child on the clouds, in a sumptuous dress with an ivory damask background and a starry mantle, flanked by little angels in flight and with the saints Francis of Assisi, Dominic and Carlo Borromeo at her feet.” (Santuario di Nostra Signora di Guastafredda, Piacenzapace)

Basilica of San Savino

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Basilica of San Savino
Via Alberoni
Piacenza, May 2024

“The Basilica of San Savino is an ancient Roman Catholic basilica in the city of Piacenza in the Province of Piacenza, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Sabinus of Piacenza, second bishop of the city. San Savino was established as a Benedictine monastery in 903, located outside the then city walls. Much of Piacenza, and likely the original church here was ravaged by the Hungarian invasions in the early 900s. The attached church was initially dedicated to the twelve apostles, but Sabinus himself was buried here. The original construction appears to have been poor. In February 998, Pope Gregory V confirmed its right to freely elect its abbots. It was rebuilt by Bishop Sigifredo in 1005. The present layout is due to an 1107 reconstruction with later modifications, although it includes a few elements from the 903 edifice.” (San Savino, Wikipedia)

Monument to Garibaldi

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Monument to Garibaldi by Enrico Astorri, 1889
Piazzale Marconi
Piacenza, May 2024

“The Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Piacenza was created by the sculptor Enrico Astorri in 1889 with inauguration taking place on 2 June. The work is composed of an artificial stone base in the shape of a rocky spur on top of which stands the bronze statue of Garibaldi with his arms folded, military cape and Hungarian cap. Below, the figure of a Garibaldian during a military action. The sketch of the monument is preserved in the city's Risorgimento Museum while the bronze casting was cast by the Romani brothers' foundry in Milan.” (Monumento a Garibaldi, Wikipedia)

San Francesco

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Church of San Francesco
Via Sopramuro
Piacenza, May 2024

“San Francesco is a Roman Catholic church, located on Piazza Cavalli #68 in Piacenza, Italy. It was built in a style described as Lombard Gothic and is centrally located facing towards the Piazza del Cavalli, which is surrounded by the Palazzo Gotico and the Palazzo del Governatore. The church and adjacent monastery were built for the Friars Minor, a member of the Franciscan order, between 1278 and 1363 under the patronage of the Ghibelline Umbertino Landi, who donated the land. It soon became a convent for nuns of the Clarissan order. From this church in 1547, Count Agostino Landi addressed the assembled people to announce that he and other nobles had murdered Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Parma. During the Napoleonic period despite a brief conversion of parts of the complex into armory and then a hospital, the church remained open. For a time it was dedicated to the early Christian martyr, St Napoleon. The church was returned to the clerics, but by 1810, they had left the convent. In 1848, the annexation of Piacenza to the Kingdom of Sardinia was proclaimed from this church.” (San Francesco, Wikipedia)