Ferrara, Cathedral

While the exterior is engrossing, it didn’t prepare us for the exquisite splendor inside the Cathedral of San Giorgio. We really enjoyed the artwork in this spectacular place of worship. The people who built, and those who restored Ferrara’s Cathedral were really artistic masters. We must almost touch some of the pictures to make sure they are just paintings, and not a three-dimensional sculpture. The north side of the Cathedral (begun 1135) is built right up against other buildings, the market place is located on the south side in an open plaza. We could see small columns high on the side of the white and pink marble building, above the marketplace. In several cases, a pair of columns are intertwined and carved in various shapes.

Another year (we've visited here three times), on the street near the Cathedral, Ferrara had parking places for visitors from other countries only, no Italian license plates permitted. During yet another visit, that special parking space was not longer reserved.

We have seen at least a thousand city walls, or remainders of walls, in all parts of Europe, and each is exceptional. On the north side of Ferrara there were no houses or other buildings outside the wall, so a mile or two of the wall as originally built, can be seen with no obstruction. Defensive positions, perhaps best defined as a “spade” on a deck of cards, extend many yards from the wall.

When we see city walls and gates, fortified castles, basilicas, the amphitheaters, cathedrals, and the old theaters, we see beautiful, useful craftsmanship, the result of authentic expertise, rather than just some old, odd object someone chose to put in a museum.