The day was falling when I stopped under the incomplete porticoes of my Basilica. The wooden scaffolding, pitch-black and gnarled , climbed like skeletons along the façade, enveloping the building in a lattice that seemed suspended in time. The resinous smell of damp wood mingled with the acrid scent of red-hot metals, carried by the wind from the goldsmiths' workshops nearby. I was not alone. The shadows lengthened around the workers who, on the scaffolding, were shaping the

Vicenza has always been considered the Italian city of gold, able to boast for centuries the production of about a third of all the goldsmith work of the beautiful country. Ok, Arezzo friends, we know... Do we want to say that Vicenza is itself a jewel? What do you say? But certainly, without a doubt Arezzo in turn! Let's get to us: the first document that attests to our ancient tradition dates back to 1399, when the "Constitution of the Guild of Goldsmiths of Vicenza" was i

In Vicenza, tourism was born centuries ago thanks to some important visitors who were passionate and curious about Palladio’s works, just a few years after his death. We choose just a few here, jumping from one century to the next and remaining in the proximity of what today is by far the most visited attraction. The first official tourists that history remembers were the very young representatives of the Tenshō Embassy , travelling from Japan to Europe between 1582 and 1590.

Everyone seems ready — truly dressed to the nines  — here in Vicenza during this April week. Not only because spring has arrived, tinting the city with the purple of blooming wisteria and giving every street a new light,but because a very special anniversary is approaching, one that celebrates Vicenza’s value and beauty on both a national and international stage. Vicenza is preparing to mark 30 years since its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List . The site “ City of

Vicenza is an ancient dream , one in which we can still today dive , let ourselves go, forget for a moment — for a day, a week — that everything must be done for something, that there must be some small daily and concrete purpose. To forget a life lived in survival mode and to savour, inhale, aspire to something great, magnificent, ideal. Vicenza is real, but there is also a Vicenza that exists beyond. One that exists in the wings of the Teatro Olimpico , one that existed in

On Sunday the 21st, Palazzo Valmarana Braga in Vicenza will host the event organized by the Italian Historic Houses Association. It will be an opportunity to recall a remarkable moment  in the life of one of the most beautiful palaces  within the UNESCO-listed Palladian heritage. As so often happens, that moment was born from tragedy : the bombing of the palace during the Second World War, on March 18, when it was partly destroyed and reduced to what seemed an irrecoverable r

In Vicenza, which in 49 B.C. it became a Roman municipium, in the corner of the cardo with the current Lampertico contrà was the domus, a residential area for the wealthy people of Vicenza. In the 2nd century AD. one of these houses was enlarged with an apsidal hall called domus ecclesiae and became a meeting place for the first Christians. At the end of the 14th century in that place, the Cathedral was built with a semicircular apse and three naves. In 425, while Marcello of

In Roman times, south of the Via Postumia , there was a pagan necropolis where even the first Christians buried their dead. In this area grew the cult of the brothers Felice and Fortunato de Rainoni, martyred in Aquileia  during the reign of Domitian . Toward the end of the 4th century, a simple ecclesiae  hall was built, measuring roughly 10 × 16 meters: structurally modest, yet enriched by a mosaic floor  that is still visible inside the basilica. In 452, the hordes of Atti

Vicenza was once a far more beautiful city . The railway station had been a monumental building  before it was bombed. From the station avenue, one walked toward the city center admiring the “O”  and the Campo Marzio , enriched by the Teatro Verdi  and the Moresco Bar .One can only imagine what Vicenza would look like today if its theater had been rebuilt as it was, and if cafés and restaurants still animated the station boulevard. The Giardini Salvi  came to life every Sept