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19 city guides · Europe

Cities in Italy (19)

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Bologna

Bologna (La Grassa, La Dotta, La Rossa — "The Fat, the Learned, the Red": three epithets that define the city perfectly) is the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy and the gastronomic capital of Europe, a claim no other city can seriously dispute: the ragù alla bolognese (the meat sauce that the world knows as "Bolognese"), the tortellini (the egg pasta ring filled with a mixture of pork, prosciutto, mortadella and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese), the tagliatelle (the handmade egg pasta cut to exactly 1/12,270th of the height of the Asinelli Tower — the official measurement registered at the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1972), the mortadella (the pink pork sausage with pistachio and myrtle berries, the original "bologna" of American lunch meat), and the Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano-Reggiano (both produced in the neighbouring province of Parma) — all concentrated in a single city. Bologna is also "La Dotta" (the Learned) because it has the oldest university in the world (the University of Bologna, founded 1088 — the first university in Western civilization, from which all universities derive their model, structure and vocabulary). And it is "La Rossa" (the Red) for both the red medieval brick of its 38km of covered porticoes (the portico system of Bologna — the longest in the world, stretching 38km through the city — is the most distinctive urban architectural feature in Italy) and for its tradition as the most consistently Communist-voting city in Italy from 1945 to 1999.

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Catania

Catania (population 310,000 city, 740,000 metropolitan area) is Sicily's second city and the most dynamic and the most culturally vibrant city on the east coast of the island. Built largely from the dark grey basalt lava of nearby Mount Etna (the most active volcano in Europe and the tallest volcano in Italy, at 3,357m), Catania has a dramatic and instantly recognisable architectural character — the Baroque city rebuilt after the devastating 1693 earthquake (the most destructive natural disaster in Sicilian history, killing 60,000 people) was constructed almost entirely in the dark Etna lava stone and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (as part of the "Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto"). The city's symbol is the Fontana dell'Elefante in the Piazza del Duomo — the lava elephant with the ancient Egyptian obelisk on its back (the elephant is the most important symbol of Catania: the most ancient civic symbol in Sicily). Mount Etna dominates the skyline and the daily life of the city, and the most important gastronomic tradition in Sicily (the arancino, the granita, the ricotta-filled cannoli and the most important fish market in the Mediterranean — the "La Pescheria") all come from or are centred on Catania.

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Florence

Florence (Firenze in Italian — population 362,000 in the city, 1 million in the metropolitan area — the capital of Tuscany and one of the most culturally significant cities in the world) is the city where the Renaissance was born: the 15th-century explosion of artistic, architectural and intellectual achievement that transformed European civilization began in Florence, under the patronage of the Medici family (the Florentine banking dynasty whose financial power funded the greatest concentration of artistic talent in history). The Uffizi Gallery (the most important gallery of Italian Renaissance painting in the world, containing works by Botticelli (the Birth of Venus, the Primavera), Leonardo da Vinci (the Annunciation), Michelangelo (the Doni Tondo), Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio and Giotto), the Accademia (the museum where Michelangelo's David (1501–1504) stands — the marble figure 5.17m tall that is the definitive Western sculpture of the ideal human form), the Duomo (the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi's dome (1436) — the largest masonry dome ever built, without centering, using a double-shell construction technique that Brunelleschi invented and kept secret), and the Ponte Vecchio (the 14th-century bridge over the Arno covered with jewelers' shops — the only bridge in Florence not destroyed by the retreating German army in 1944 (following Hitler's personal orders, according to the German commander who was present)) make Florence the most concentrated collection of masterpieces in the world per square kilometer. No city of comparable size has produced such a disproportionate contribution to the history of human civilization: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, and the Medici family were all Florentine or made Florence their primary base.

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Genoa

Genoa (population 565,000 — "Genova" in Italian) is the most precisely medieval-caruggi-labyrinth single Italian port city and the most comprehensively UNESCO-inscribed-historic-centre single Ligurian city. The Old Town (the most precisely largest-medieval-historic-centre-in-Europe single Genoa UNESCO designation: the most comprehensively 14th-16th-century single densely-packed caruggi narrow lane network), the Palazzi dei Rolli (the most precisely 42-UNESCO-listed-palaces single Genoa heritage: the most comprehensively Republic-of-Genoa-official-guesthouse single 16th-17th-century palace system), Christopher Columbus's birthplace (Genoa is the most precisely Columbus-birthplace single European city: 1451 born in Genoa), the Via Garibaldi (the most precisely UNESCO-listed single Genoa palace street: the most comprehensively Mannerist-and-Baroque-palace-lined single Genoa street), and the pesto (the most precisely Ligurian-basil-pesto-origin single Italian sauce city: the most comprehensively Genovese-basil-PDO single pesto birthplace). Genoa is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and pesto — the two most influential single Genoese contributions to world history.

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Milan

Milan is Italy's most international city and its economic engine — a place that invented the modern concept of fashion week, produced Prada, Versace, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana, and yet still retains in its historic centre Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper (painted 1495–98), one of the world's most recognisable artworks, the white marble pinnacled Duomo that took six centuries to complete, and the La Scala opera house where Verdi and Puccini were premiered. Milan was a Celtic settlement, a Roman capital (Mediolanum, capital of the Western Roman Empire 286–402 CE), a Visconti duchy, a Spanish possession and a Napoleonic capital before becoming the driver of the Italian industrial revolution. Contemporary Milan is a city of contradictions — the Quadrilatero della Moda luxury boutiques on Via Montenapoleone and the trendy Navigli canal district's aperitivo bars are three kilometres apart, yet feel like different worlds. The Brera and Isola neighbourhoods have become design and gallery districts that rival any in Europe. Milan is the only Italian city where the economic urgency and the cultural accumulation feel genuinely equal.

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Naples

Naples is the most operatic city in the world — a place of overwhelming sensory intensity where the volcanic shadow of Vesuvius looms over one of Europe's densest and most chaotic urban environments, where the greatest pizza on Earth was invented (the Margherita, at Pizzeria Brandi in 1889), and where the museums hold more Roman art than Rome itself. The Historic Centre of Naples is UNESCO World Heritage — a palimpsest of Greek Neapolis (founded 470 BCE), Roman Parthenope, Norman-Swabian occupation, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and now one of Europe's most densely populated urban cores. The Spaccanapoli (the long straight street that splits the city) is lined with baroque churches, presepe (nativity) craftsmen and pizza counter windows that send the smell of wood-fired dough and San Marzano tomatoes into every lane. The National Archaeological Museum holds the most significant collection of Greco-Roman art outside Rome, including entire rooms of Pompeii frescoes, the Farnese Hercules and the Cabinet of Obscene Objects. Pompeii and Herculaneum are 30 minutes south by Circumvesuviana railway — the Roman cities preserved by the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption are among the most extraordinary archaeological sites on Earth.

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Padua

Padua (Padova in Italian) is a city of 200,000 in the Veneto region of northeast Italy, 35 km from Venice, and the home of the oldest continuously operating university in the world after Bologna — the University of Padua (founded 1222) where Galileo Galilei taught for 18 years (1592–1610) and where Vesalius revolutionised anatomy by dissecting human bodies in the Anatomical Theatre (1594, the oldest surviving anatomical theatre in the world). Padua is also the site of the Scrovegni Chapel (1304–1305), which holds the most important fresco cycle in Western art — Giotto's 38 panels covering the entire chapel interior are so significant that the restoration of perspective and naturalism in painting they represent effectively initiated the Renaissance; art historians consider this the most important single room in Western art, equal to the Sistine Chapel. The Basilica of Saint Anthony (Sant'Antonio, begun 1232) is one of the great pilgrimage churches of Christianity — the tomb of Saint Anthony of Padua (patron saint of lost things, 1195–1231) is the most visited shrine in Italy after Rome, and the Donatello bronze reliefs of the high altar (1443–1450) are considered his greatest sculptural achievement. Padua's medieval heart is the most intact in the Veneto — the Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza della Frutta and Piazza dei Signori form the longest continuous medieval market square sequence in Italy, connected under the Palazzo della Ragione (1218, the largest medieval hall in Europe on the ground floor, 78 m × 27 m, with an elaborately frescoed interior).

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Palermo

Palermo is the capital of Sicily and one of the most historically layered cities in the Mediterranean — a place that has been Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Swabian, Spanish and Italian in succession, leaving an extraordinary palimpsest of cultures visible in its street food, architecture and dialect. The Arab-Norman period (1072–1194) produced the most distinctive art in the city: the Palatine Chapel (Cappella Palatina, 1132–1143) with its golden Byzantine mosaics covering every surface combined with Islamic stalactite (muqarnas) ceilings in a single room that defies categorisation; the Church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti with its distinctive red domes in an Arabic style; and the Martorana (Piazza Bellini) with a golden mosaic of King Roger II in Byzantine imperial robes receiving his crown directly from Christ — a political iconography so audacious it was essentially blasphemous. Palermo's street food culture is among the most extraordinary in Italy: the Ballarò market (a North African souk transplanted to Sicily) sells stigghiola (roasted offal on a stick), panelle (chickpea fritters), arancine (fried rice balls — the Palermitan form has ragù, peas and mozzarella), sfincione (thick Sicilian pizza with anchovies and onions) and pane con la milza (spleen sandwich in lard, the most confronting of all Palermitan street foods). The city was badly bombed in WWII and has struggled with a complicated relationship with the Mafia, but its cultural renaissance since the 1980s — culminating in UNESCO recognition of the Arab-Norman architecture in 2015 — has made it one of the most exciting cities in Southern Italy.

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Parma

Parma is a city of 200,000 in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy and one of the great food cities of the world — home to Parmigiano-Reggiano (the king of cheeses, produced in the province since 1248), Prosciutto di Parma (the air-cured ham, the finest in Italy by production volume and international recognition), culatello di Zibello (the most prized cured meat in Italy, made from the muscular heart of the pig's thigh, aged in the fog of the Po River plain), and tortelli d'erbetta (the local pasta, unlike any other — thin pasta sheets filled with ricotta and fresh herbs, served with butter and Parmigiano). The city is also the birthplace of Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957, the greatest conductor of the 20th century) and the home of the Teatro Regio di Parma (one of Italy's finest opera houses, where the famously harsh Parma audience would whistle a mediocre soprano off the stage — the loggionisti of Parma are the most feared opera critics in Italy). Parma's art historical claim is equally strong: the Camera di San Paolo (1519, the frescoed room by Correggio considered his first masterpiece) and the dome of Parma Cathedral (1526–1530, Correggio's Assumption of the Virgin, the most dynamic ceiling fresco before Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel) are two of the supreme achievements of Italian Renaissance painting. The Baptistery (1196–1270) adjacent to the Cathedral is the finest Romanesque baptistery in northern Italy with pink Verona marble and the extraordinary sculptural program of Benedetto Antelami.

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Pisa

Pisa is one of Europe's most instantly recognizable cities by virtue of a single building — the Leaning Tower — and one of its most misunderstood, because the city that gave the world the most famous example of engineering failure (the 55 m marble tower that began leaning in 1173 CE when only 3 storeys were complete, due to the soft subsoil on the south side) is simultaneously a city of extraordinary medieval ambition, a great medieval republic that controlled Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands and most of Tuscany, and the birthplace of Galileo Galilei (1564). The Piazza dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles, UNESCO World Heritage), the grassy square containing the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Camposanto and the Tower, is the finest ensemble of Romanesque architecture in Italy — four brilliant white marble monuments in a green meadow that, seen together, are more impressive than the Tower alone. The Cathedral (begun 1064, the model for Pisan Romanesque that spread across Sardinia, Corsica and southern Italy) has a bronze door by Bonanno Pisano, a mosaic by Cimabue in the apse, and the famous chandelier that, swinging during a church service in 1583, gave Galileo the idea for the pendulum (which he timed with his own pulse). The Baptistery (the largest in Italy, begun 1152) has acoustics so remarkable that a solo voice creates a natural 4-part chord — the warden demonstrates this several times daily to astonished visitors. Pisa lies 10 km from the Ligurian Sea on the Arno River (the same river that flows through Florence 80 km east), and is one of the best-connected cities in Tuscany — the airport serves budget airlines from across Europe and the fast train reaches Florence in 50 minutes.

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Portofino

Portofino is a village of about 400 people that receives 500,000 visitors a year, and the tension between those two numbers is exactly what makes it interesting. The horseshoe harbour ringed with salmon and ochre houses is the most-photographed scene in Liguria — Sophia Loren filmed here, Rex Harrison lived here, the Italian Riviera essentially invented itself around this cove. What is less known: the cliffs above hide walking paths that connect to Santa Margherita in one direction and to the lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula in another, and the water is clear enough that scuba divers come specifically to see the bronze Christ statue sunk 15 metres below the surface.

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Positano

Positano looks exactly as dramatic as a painting but is instead a real village tumbling down a cliff into the Tyrrhenian Sea. The pastel houses stacked above Spiaggia Grande, the smell of lemon groves and fresh sfogliatelle, a single main road so narrow that donkeys made more sense than cars until recently — it earns every cliché. Three days lets you swim its two beaches, walk the clifftop path above them at dusk when the tour coaches are gone, take a boat out to the silent Li Galli islands where legend puts Ulysses' sirens, and eat fresh-caught alici under a vine trellis. You won't be alone, but you'll understand why a million people try anyway.

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Rome

Rome (Roma — "the Eternal City") is the most historically layered city on earth: a 2,800-year urban layer cake where a Republican-era Forum, a Baroque piazza, a medieval basilica and a Fascist-era palazzo can all be visible from the same street corner. Rome was the largest city in the ancient world (1 million residents at its height under the emperor Trajan, 117 AD — not matched by another city in the Western world until London in the 19th century), the seat of the Catholic Church since the 4th century, and the capital of unified Italy since 1871. The three great sites that should anchor any visit: the Colosseum (the Flavian Amphitheatre, 70–80 AD — 50,000 spectators, 400 years of gladiatorial combat, the most visited ancient monument in the world), the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (the heart of the Republican and Imperial city — where Caesar was killed, where the Senate debated and where the emperors built their palaces), and the Vatican Museums + Sistine Chapel (the greatest collection of art in a single institution in the world — Raphael, Caravaggio, Michelangelo's ceiling). Rome's food is the most distinct of any Italian city: cacio e pepe (pasta with pecorino and black pepper, no cream), carbonara (eggs, guanciale, pecorino, black pepper — never cream), supplì (fried rice balls), and the Roman pizzas al taglio (rectangular, by weight, baked in trays).

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San Gimignano

San Gimignano is a walled hilltop town in the province of Siena in Tuscany, central Italy — a municipality of 7,700 people (only about 1,000 live within the medieval walls) whose medieval skyline of 14 surviving towers (out of 72 towers built during the height of the town's power, 13th-14th century — the tower-building mania of medieval Italian city-states: wealthy families built ever-taller towers to display their power and provide refuge in the frequent civil conflicts between rival factions) makes it one of the most immediately recognisable townscapes in the world. San Gimignano (UNESCO World Heritage since 1990, cited for its extraordinary state of medieval preservation and the tower skyline) sits at 334 m altitude in the Val d'Elsa valley, 57 km south of Florence, 38 km northwest of Siena, surrounded by vineyards producing Vernaccia di San Gimignano (the first Italian wine to receive DOC status in 1966 and DOCG status in 1993 — the unique white wine grape variety that grows only in the San Gimignano area, making wines of delicate floral and almond character that pair with the local wild boar, saffron and truffle cuisine). Medieval San Gimignano was wealthy from its position on the Via Francigena (the medieval pilgrimage and trade road from Canterbury to Rome, passing through San Gimignano), and from its monopoly on the trade of saffron (zafferano, from the Crocus sativus grown in the surrounding Val d'Elsa fields — the most expensive spice in the world by weight, used medicinally and as a dye in medieval Europe; San Gimignano saffron DOP is the world's finest). The Piazza della Cisterna (the main triangular medieval square, paved with herringbone brick, with its 1237 well) and the Piazza del Duomo (the adjacent square with the Collegiata and the towers) form the finest medieval civic space in Tuscany.

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Siena

Siena is a medieval Tuscan city of 54,000 inhabitants, built on three hills in the clay landscape of the Crete Senesi, that has preserved its entire 14th-century urban character essentially unchanged — the red-brick Gothic city that gave "sienna" to the painter's colour palette (the raw sienna and burnt sienna pigments are earth tones derived from the ochre-rich clay around the city). Siena was the great rival of Florence for the control of Tuscany from the 12th to the 15th century: a Ghibelline (pro-Emperor) city where the commune (the elected city government) produced the most significant civic and humanist art programme of the medieval Italian city-states — the Lorenzetti brothers' fresco cycle The Allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338-1339, Palazzo Pubblico) is the most significant secular fresco in medieval Europe, depicting the effects of just and tyrannical government on urban and rural life with a realism 150 years ahead of its time. Siena's UNESCO World Heritage status (designated 1995) covers the entire historic centre — one of the best-preserved medieval city environments in the world. The Palio di Siena (the bareback horse race run twice a year on July 2 and August 16 in the Piazza del Campo — the oldest annual sporting event in the world run on the same site since 1656 in its current form; the 10 horses represent 10 of the 17 contrade (the ancient city wards) competing for the silk banner (palio) painted each year; the race lasts 75-90 seconds for 3 laps of the shell-shaped square, but the preparation, parades, church blessings and political maneuvering between the contrade occupies the entire year; no sporting event in the world generates more civic passion, more inter-family alliances and more strategic treachery per capita than the Siena Palio) and the Siena Cathedral (the Duomo di Siena — the most ambitious Gothic cathedral in Tuscany, with the extraordinary 13th-14th century marble floor (56 marble inlay panels covering 3,000 m² of the nave floor — the finest marble inlay floor in any European cathedral, uncovered fully only twice a year in August-October) are Siena's defining experiences.

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Turin

Turin (Torino in Italian; population 870,000 city, 2.2 million metropolitan area; the capital of Piedmont, at the foot of the Italian Alps on the Po River) is the most underestimated major city in Italy — a city that has been successively the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the first capital of unified Italy (1861-1865), yet remains far less touristed than Rome, Florence or Venice despite possessing exceptional world-class attractions. The Egyptian Museum (Museo Egizio — the second-most important collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts in the world after the Cairo Museum; over 40,000 objects; the finest collection of Egyptian art and everyday objects outside Egypt — including the 3,200-year-old papyrus "Book of the Dead" of Kha, the complete tomb of the architect Kha and Merit (18th Dynasty), and the most important New Kingdom papyri collection in the world) is the city's greatest cultural treasure. The Shroud of Turin (the Sindone di Torino — the 4.4m × 1.1m linen cloth bearing the faint image of a man in the posture of crucifixion; stored in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist; the most studied and controversial relic in Christianity: the 1988 carbon-14 dating placed the cloth's origin in the 1260-1390 period; subsequent scientific studies have challenged this conclusion on multiple grounds, and the authenticity question remains genuinely unresolved) is permanently housed in the city. The Mole Antonelliana (the 167.5-metre tower begun in 1863 by the architect Alessandro Antonelli as a Jewish synagogue and repurposed as the symbol of Turin — now housing the National Museum of Cinema, the finest film museum in the world) defines the Turin skyline. Turin was the birthplace of the Italian automobile industry (FIAT — Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino — was founded in Turin in 1899; the Lingotto factory (1923) with the rooftop oval test track is the most architecturally spectacular car factory ever built) and of the aperitivo (vermouth was invented in Turin in 1786 by the wine merchant Antonio Benedetto Carpano, creating the tradition of the pre-dinner drink that spread through Italy and the world).

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Vatican City

Vatican City (official name: Stato della Città del Vaticano; population 825 residents; area 0.44 km² (44 hectares) — the smallest internationally recognised independent state in the world by both area and population) is the sovereign seat of the Roman Catholic Church and the residence of the Pope (the Bishop of Rome), established as an independent state by the Lateran Treaty of 1929 (the treaty between the Holy See and Mussolini's Italian government that ended the "Roman Question" — the 60-year constitutional crisis created when the Papal States were absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1870). Vatican City occupies the west bank of the Tiber River (the ager vaticanus — the name derives from the Latin "vaticinium" (prophesy), referring to the Etruscan and ancient Roman oracles who operated on the hill before Christ); the territory comprises St. Peter's Square, St. Peter's Basilica (the largest church in the world — 20,000 worshippers capacity, 187 m dome height), the Apostolic Palace (the Pope's official residence with 1,400 rooms), the Vatican Museums (6 million visitors/year — the 4th most visited museum complex in the world), the Vatican Gardens (23 hectares of Renaissance, Baroque and English landscape gardens occupying two-thirds of the Vatican territory), the Vatican Radio and Television Centre, and the Vatican railway station. The UNESCO World Heritage inscription (1984) covers both Vatican City and the Historic Centre of Rome. The Sistine Chapel ceiling (painted by Michelangelo 1508-1512 on a 40×13 m barrel vault in four years lying on scaffolding — 2,700 m² of wet-plaster fresco depicting the nine scenes from the Book of Genesis) and The Last Judgment (painted by Michelangelo 1536-1541 on the altar wall — 1,370 m² fresco of the Second Coming with 391 figures) are the two most important works of Western visual art accessible to the public.

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Venice

Venice is the most improbable city ever built — 118 small islands connected by 400 bridges and 150 canals in the middle of a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea, with no cars, no roads, and no urban logic that makes sense to anyone arriving for the first time. Built by Byzantine-era refugees fleeing the Lombard invasions in the 5th–6th centuries, Venice became the most powerful maritime trading republic in the Mediterranean (697–1797 AD), amassing one of the greatest concentrations of art and architecture in the world. The Grand Canal, the Doge's Palace, the Basilica di San Marco, Titian, Tintoretto, Vivaldi — all emerged from this impossible floating city. Three days here will not be enough.

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Verona

Verona (population 260,000; the second city of Veneto after Venice, 110 km west of Venice on the Adige River; UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000 — the inscription covers the entire historic city as "an outstanding example of a military stronghold") is simultaneously the city of Roman antiquity (the Arena di Verona — the Roman amphitheatre of the 1st century CE, one of the three largest and best preserved in the world; the Teatro Romano; the Ponte Pietra Roman bridge; the Porta Borsari and Porta Leoni Roman gates), the city of medieval Gothic power (the Scaligeri dynasty (1262-1387) — the most important Ghibelline lords of northern Italy — who built the Castelvecchio (1354-1376), the Arche Scaligere (the Gothic canopied equestrian tombs), the Scaligero Bridge and the city walls; and Dante Alighieri who spent his exile from Florence at the court of Can Grande della Scala and dedicated the "Paradiso" section of the Divine Comedy to him) and the city of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet — the play (published 1597) is set in Verona; the Casa di Giulietta (Juliet's House) with the famous balcony on Via Cappello 23 is the most visited literary pilgrimage site in Italy; the Montague (Montecchi) and Capulet (Cappelletti) families are fictional composites of real Veronese noble families; the Tomb of Juliet in the Convento di San Francesco al Corso). The Arena di Verona summer opera festival (the Festival Lirico dell'Arena di Verona — held annually June-August in the Roman amphitheatre, seating 14,000; the world's most important open-air opera venue; inaugurated with a production of Aida in 1913 for the centenary of Verdi's birth) is the single most extraordinary cultural event in Italy: the Roman amphitheatre at night, the audience with candles (the traditional beeswax candles distributed to each spectator), the voices of the world's greatest opera singers amplified by the 2,000-year-old stone oval.

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