Introduction to Bologna

‘You must write all the beautiful things of Italy,’ said the Venetian we met on the train, but the man from Bologna vehemently shook his finger. ‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘You must write the truth!’ And it is precisely that, a fervent insistence on the plain truth as opposed to the typical Italian delight in appearance and bella figura, that sets Bologna apart.

A homespun realism and attention to the detail of the visible, material world are the main characteristics of the Bolognese school of art (recall Petrarch’s comment that, while only an educated man is amazed by a Giotto, anyone can understand a Bolognese picture). The city’s handsome, harmonic and well-preserved centre disdains imported marble or ornate stucco, preferring honest red brick. Bologna’s municipal government, which was long in the hands of the Italian Communist Party (now the PDS), is considered the least corrupt and most efficient of any large city in the whole country.