Monday, 23 September 2024, Verona: History real and imagined
Written 24 January 2025
Quite a nice breakfast spread at the Due Torri. No electric kettle or coffee dispenser in the hotel, but when you order tea there, they bring you a heavy, very hot, ceramic pot holding 2 to 3 cups full of hot water, so I threw my teabag in with good results. I got three cups of very good tea.
At the left here are the chafing dishes for eggs, bacon, sausage, and whatnot. The right-most one was for pancakes. Note the jug of real maple syrup next to it. The little silver-topped jars were ketchup, mustard, and mayonaise, and several other sauces and condiments, including olive oil and Tabasco, stand behind them.
At the right are cold cuts: salami, raw and cooked ham, bresaola, chicken, and smoked salmon.
Next came bowls of tomatoes, mozzarella, some sort of cheese curds in whey, and chopped lettuce and trays of three kinds of cheese (a Swiss, a soft ricotta-based thing with walnuts on top, and a cheese with herbs embedded in it).
The fruit presentation was beautiful. This tower held peaches, plums, kiwis, little fingerling bananas, pears, oranges, and three kinds of apples.
A separate, chilled display offered four kinds of fruit juice in large pitchers as well as a bottle of sparkling wine.
Open glass jars held three kinds of cookies (across the front, the right-most ones seemed to be jam-filled) and six kinds of dry cereal, flanked by dishes of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. In the lower left corner, you can see my little grey travel teapot which I brought down with me in case it should be needed.
Finally, the management seemed particularly sensitive to those wishing to avoid gluten. This wooden tray was stocked with 20 different packaged items, all of which were gluten-free, and it was only one of three such trays, each offering a different assortment!
We had plenty of time for breakfast, because our tour started at a relatively leisurely hour just outside the door of our hotel. The hotel faces on the Piazza S. Anastasia, so as you step outside and look to the right, you see the church of Santa Anastasia (left-hand photo), the largest in the city. It's supposed to be beautiful inside, but I never got a chance to go in.
According to Marina, our local guide to Verona, the church was built during the middle ages, in 1290, by the ruling Scala family. Its façade is still incomplete. The right-hand door opens to the public, but the left-hand door is always closed. It opens only to admit animals. Apparently that tradition is based on a famous local race for donkeys and horses. The race was called the Palio (from a Latin word meaning a piece of fabric, because that was the prize), and in winter, when there was a huge line at the right-hand door, the winners of the Palio could enter through the left door, together with their animals.
Facing the hotel across the square is the church of St. Peter the Martyr, the city's second patron. He is protrayed in a fresco over the door (that you can't really make out in this photo) with a machete in his head, because that's apparently how he was martyred, with a huge knife to the head.
The city's top patron is St. Xino (Zeno). He was a fisherman, a Greek born in Syria, and he would fish along the river, meeting people and converting them to Christianity. Eventually, he became a monk and finally bishop of Verona.
Between St. Peter's and Anastasia is an archway, and above the archway is a sarcophagus. It contains the remains of William from Castelbarco. He was a friend of the Scalas and contributed money to building Santa Anastasia.
Verona was established inside a sharp bend in the river Adige, the second longest river in Italy, after the Po. Our hotel and Santa Anastasia were well within that bend, so from the hotel we walked the few blocks (more or less) north to the river bank.
On the way, we passed the impressive high water mark shown at the left here. It commemorates the city's worst flood. On 17 September 1882, the Adige rose that high, and 2/3 of the city was covered with water. According to Marina, that flood completely washed away three historical palaces.
At the right is our view across the river to St. Peter's Hill, the area that originally included the Roman theater (half-circle, as opposed to the full circle of the amphitheatre, located elsewhere) and beyond it on the hill a very large Roman temple. Today St. Peter's hill includes a a barracks that looks like a castle (built by the Austrohungarian Empire) and a viewing terrace at the top of the hill.
Here's a map of Roman Verona showing the main part of the city as well as Saint Peter's hill. You can see that the hill was also included within the city walls.
The right-hand photo is a telephoto of what used to be part of the theatre, whose flat side faces us across the river. I think the modern building that merges into it, with the very flat façade and small windows, is the archeological museum.
As you can see from the map, the amphitheatre was outside the Roman walls, but it was inside the later medieval walls, which enclosed a much larger area.
The map also shows the two bridges the Romans built. The Ponte Pietra (the one on the left) is still there and still in use, but only by pedestrians (it was blown up by the Germans during WWII but was rebuilt in the 1950's; one arch is still original). The other, the Ponte Postumo, was swept away in a flood in the 10th century. We stood near what had been its near end to take these photos. Several modern bridges now span the Adige.
Decumana and Cardo streets were perpendicular and were the two Roman axes; all the other Roman streets were laid out parallel to those.
From the river, we worked our way back through the city toward the amphitheatre, visiting the large squares shown on the Roman map as well as other features.
Marina pointed out Sottoriva ("under the banks") Street as the one to visit for trattorias. On the slate menu, she is pointing to "gnocchi with pastisada de caval"—gnocchi with horsemeat stew—a traditional dish in this region. The menu also lists bruschetta, duck with vinegar and onions, "bigoli col musso" (pasta with donkey stew; even Italians must find that one a little obscure, since it's clarified in parentheses with a more modern word for donkey), and "cinghiale" (wild boar) with polenta. Pretty traditional place!
On the subject of gnocchi, Marina told us that the last Friday before lent is "gnocci day" in Verona. The carnival's grand parade is held that day, led by Papa Gnoco, who carries a giant (artificial) gnocchi on a giant fork.
The astonishing construction in the right-hand photo is the Scala family cemetery. The Scalas ruled verona for a long time, and their name and emblems are everywhere. The word "scala" means "ladder," so every flower in the wrought-iron fence around the cemetery (shown in close-up below) has a little ladder in the middle of it. The family's private church, next to the cemetery, I think, is now open for visitors.
Here, at the left is the iron fence full of tiny ladders, and I think the right-hand photo is the Scala family church. The larger tombs and the construction over the church door include an equestrian statue of the person as well as a reclining ephigy on the sarcophagus.
I found it a little hard to follow Marina's account of the various Scala rulers, but the first one was apparently called Grand Cane I—Big Dog the first. That's why some of the graves are flanked by stone dogs with crowns. I think his tomb is the very large one in the near corner of the fenced area. Anyway, he died (in 1329) at age 38, and when his tomb was opened about 20 years ago, the autopsy revealed large amounts of digitalis in his liver, so he is thought to have been poisoned. His nephew (and successor, I think), called Mastiff Dog II, is the prime suspect, thought to have paid the doctor to poison him.
The Mastiff Dog's daughter married a Milanese, moved to Milan, and founded a church and monastery there, Santa Maria of the Scala family. It's no longer there, but the Milan opera house was built on the remains of its foundations, and that's why it's call La Scala.
Our walk took us through many squares, including the pair of large ones in the center of the Roman city. One square, shown at the left here, had a couple of large glass portholes set in the pavement through which we could look down on excavated Roman ruins. The glass was pretty dirty and cloudy, so I didn't get very good photos, but through one we could see the geometric, largely monochrome mosaic floor of a Roman house and through the other, two Lombard tombs.
Marina described Dante Square (aka Signori Square), at the right here, as "the living room of Verona." That's Dante portrayed in stone standing in the middle of it. He was born in Florence but had to flee for political reasons and lived here instead, in the palace of Big Dog I (the first book of The Divine Comedy was dedicated to Big Dog I.
Some of these buildings also bear the winged lion of Venice, because Venice occupied Verona for a long time.
One of the arches leading into the square is topped by a 1559 statue of Girolamo Fracastoro, a local physician and polymath. He holds a stone globe in his right hand, and local legend says that he'll drop it on the head of the first honest man who passes under the arch.
This brick tower, located nearby, is part of the Palazzo della Ragione, the original city hall of Verona, now a museum.
On the way there, we were shown the building that is supposedly Romeo's house. It's privately owned, so you can't go inside. I probably have a photo of it, but I'm afraid I've lost track of which one it is of the many photos I took of brick medieval houses. Marina pointed out that it has swallow-tail crenelations, marking it as occupied by Guelphs (supporters of the pope); Ghibbeline houses (occupied by supporters of the king) had rectangular crenelations. As I think I've said, in my last diary if not in this one, that the two groups were literally at war, within each Italian city, in the 12th century. Juliet's family were apparently Ghibbelines.
And of course, as in all Italian cities it seems, we passed a "mouth of truth, this one only about the size of a dinner plate.
Suspended under one of the arches we passed through next to the Palazzo della Ragione was this whale rib. It was a souvenir brought home by a local chemist who traveled. According to Marina, the square the arch leads into was the old meat market, so he donated the rib to symbolize it. When we were there, the stalls were selling mostly clothes and leather goods like handbags. A white column at the far end is topped by the Venetian winged lion.
This fountain portrays Madonna Verona, who personifies the city. It's in the Piazza Erbe, the ancient Roman forum.
I think Marina said that both the statue and the fountain's basin are Roman, the statue from a temple and the basin from a Roman bath.
In a paving stone in this square, marble I think, I spotted this great snail shell, or maybe an ammonite. For scale, you can just make out, at the top edge of the photo, the toes of somebody looking at it from the other side.
At the left here is the Lamberti tower, over 80 m high, the tallest in the city. For a fee, you can climb it. We were not tempted.
In the middle of this square, which also hosted a market, was this square structure called the Berlina. It served as the town's equivalent of the stocks—offenders were tied to it so that passers by could pelt them with rotten vegetables. But it also served as the town's authority on weights and measures. The standards for length measures were engraved on its columns; a chain was attached that was the standard for the circumference of a bundle of wood of a standard size; and molds were carved into it that defined the standard size for a brick and that for a roof tile.
At one edge of the square, Marina points out the monument to Veronese poet Roberto Barbarani
(1872–1945). And, yes, the signs in the windows above him direct passers by to the nearest KFC.
The market was heavily skewed toward souvenirs, but a couple of stands were offering beautiful fresh fruits and berries, and the one at the right was selling gorgeous ready-to-eat fruit cups (with little wooden forks), 5 euros each. Many were spectacularly topped by fat spears of brilliant red watermelon wedged in place by large chunks of fresh coconut. Above them and around the corner were bowls of just whole strawberries as well as cups of strawberries topped with Nutella and whipped cream.
Our next stop was Juliet's house. I don't know who settled on this building or how it was chosen, but it is now firmly entrenched. Neither Romeo's nor Juliet's house really was the house even of plausible historical models for the characters, but people are really eager to visit them. This one had already been singled out and was drawing visitors before a local history professor decided it should be done right. He went to a depository where "spare parts" (from renovations, demolitions, and collapses) of medieval buildings were dumped, selected a historically appropriate balcony, and had it installed here, in a small courtyard off the street (the archway leading into it features a hat; the Capulets were hat makers). He also ensured that the site designated "Juliet's tomb" (yes, you can visit, weep over, and leave mementos at the tomb of a fictional character) was historically accurate. You can go inside the house, climb to the second floor and stand on the balcony if you like.
At the back of the couryard (pretty small in my photo), is a statue of Juliet, worn shiny by all the visitors rubbing her left breast, which is supposed to bring luck. In the right-hand photo, a visitor takes a picture outside the little gift shop. Note the red post box (with miniature balcony) mounted on the wall next to her. I don't know whether it functions for real mail or just for letters to Juliet.
Thousands of people every year write letters to Juliet asking advice, especially about romantic involvements. Some are left here in crevices in the walls; others arrive by mail. A surprisingly small corps of volunteers (50 people, maybe, speakers of many languages, since the letters come from all over the world) actually answers all of them, with handwritten advice! I'm not sure just who in this situation is crazier. The book Letters to Juliet tells the story of the phenomenon and has even been made into a movie. Apparently nobody much writes to Romeo.
The people of Verona are very proud of all their city has to offer tourists in the way of Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and modern history, art, architecture, and cuisine and are understandably annoyed that so much of their tourism is drawn by Romeo and Juliet!
At the left here, with my foot for scale, are the flat square paving stones I mentioned in my entry for Bergamo. These may be a nuisance to walk on but they are not cobblestones.
The last stop on our guided tour was the Roman amphitheater. It's only half the size of, but is 30 years older than, the colosseum in Rome, dating from 50 AD. In 1117, a bad earthquake brought down its outer ring of arches, but the remainder is far better preserved than most Roman amphitheaters. It seats about 30,000 (is the largest open-air lyrical theater in the world), and the city still holds a whole open-air opera season in it every year (under a big canvas shade covering). The series began in 1913, on the anniversary of Verdi's birth. We didn't have time to go inside.
According to Marina
Marina left us at the amphitheater, with directions for the walk back to our hotel. On the way, we encountered this monumental statue of Victor Emanuel II, first king of united Italy—too bad it doesn't show up better again the dark trees.
In the median of a city street was this steel monument to Bruno Ruffo (1920–2007), a popular Italian motorcycle racer from Verona. Again, I didn't frame the photo very well—the café umbrella is kind of a visual distraction. Look for the racer's head just by the left-hand corner of the umbrella.
My attention was caught by this shop window featuring large flat breads like those we saw in Bergamo. The one in the center here seems to be paved over in ham and potatoes. To the left of it is one featuring at least five different cheese, including slices of a blue-veined one. To its right was one covered with goat cheese, thinly sliced pear, and walnuts, and to the right of that was the classic Caprese topping.
At the right is the Castelvecchio, a fortress built by "Big Dog II," now, of course, a museum.
Facing the Castelvecchio was this monumental statue of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. I think there's also a famous battle called Cavour, and I'm quite fond of an Italian meringue dessert called "Marengo Cavour." I'm not sure which, if either, the dessert commemorates.
And set in a small garden beside the Castelvecchio is the Arco dei Gavi. It was originally commissioned by the Roman Gavi family just outside the Roman walls, and it was much admired and imitated, apparently influencing Veronese architecture for centuries. The French tore it down in 1805 (good old Napoleon, I'll bet), but it was so well studied that it could be reassembled later (in 1932) in its present location.
For lunch, we turned into a tiny, crowded street that Marina had pointed out as lined with good places to eat. David had the lasagna shown at the left, and I got a great plate of spaghetti with white clam sauce, complete with shells. Yummy.
For dessert, we split this crispy tangle of pastry, chocolate, almonds, and powdered sugar.
In the window right by our table—we were sitting in the "street" (actually a tiny shaded alley) outside the restaurant—were these items labeled "torta russa," Russian cakes. They're apparently typical of Verona, but their origin is up for debate (hence the long explanation on the label). They come in all sizes and consist of a mixture of almond paste, sugar, eggs, etc. baked in a puff-pastry shell.
In a neighboring case were these appetizing-looking calzones filled with, from left to right, salami, mozzarella, and tomatoes; cooked ham, mozzarella, and tomatoes; cooked ham, mozzarella, mushrooms, and tomatoes.
As we left, we had to step aside for the passage of the local equivalent of the little white tourist train, this one cream and olive colored.
Back at the hotel, in the late afternoon, Danny had arranged a private lecture for us by Lise Friedman, the author of Letters to Juliet, an American who lives in Verona. That's where we learned a lot more about the "Friends of Juliet," the origin of the group, and the work they do.
The whole group had dinner at Restaurant Maffei, chosen by Tauck. This shot of the basement dining room where we were seated is pretty blurry, but it gives an idea of the ambiance.
Another member of our group took this photo of David and me, which came out better than most.
I started with tightly spiralled pasta dressed with cherry tomatoes, Pecorino cheese, and ragout of gurnard (Chelidonithys cuculus, a small fish).
David chose tubular pasta with special olives, crisps of grana padano, and ragout of rabbit. He was very taken with the cheese crisps; we should try making those at home.
I apparently didn't get a photo of David's main course, but it was probably the amberjack (Seriola sp., a large fish) with olives, capers, and cherry tomatoes.
I had an absolutely scrumptious braised beef cheek over mashed potatoes with a cherry sauce.
Between the main course and dessert, we got to go down the restaurant's subbasement to admire the Roman ruins it was built over. As you can see, one special table is out at the end of the walkway, right among them. It can presumably be reserved for smaller groups who wish to dine among the archeology.
We were already at basement level, but the Roman foundations were below that. The restaurant has made a selling point of them and offers access to its diners.
Back at our table. We both had apple cake for dessert.
And somewhere along the line, I learned that the building our hotel now occupies was built in the 14th century was was called the Palazzo dell'Aquila, the Eagle Palace. I think we were told that it housed guards who worked for the Big Dog.
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