Friday, April 3, 2009

Inside the university..

  One of the statues that decorate the stairwells within the Italianistica department of the university.  The university is spread throughout the older sections of the city with the majority of the departments residing on Via Zamboni, which is filled 24/7 by students.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

San Petronio

The front of San Petronio. It's hard to capture the enormousness of this building, but it is one of the top ten largest churches in the world and would have been even larger if the construction hadn't stopped on it. The church was supposed to have side chapels so the entire building would have had the form of the cross, and it would have been even larger than Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. However, the Pope Pius IV stopped this by ordering buildings to be constructed close by on either side of the church.  I'll try and get a picture of the side where you can see where the extension was supposed to be.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Hidden Canals

One of the canals that run through Bologna.  There are still quite a few subterranean waterways that originate from the small rivers that used to run through the city.  Most are underground, but there are still some spots, like this one, where you can see the canal when it  reaches the surface.