The Manneken-Pis is a bronze statue of a puer minges, about fifty centimeters high, located in the historic center of Brussels. This statue is the symbol of the independence of spirit of the inhabitants of Brussels. It is a fountain that represents a child who is urinating. The words MannekenPis in Brussels (Flemish dialect close to Dutch) mean little boy who pees. Manneken Pis has become, with the Grand Square and the Atomium (large steel sculpture of a unit cell of an iron

Corte dei Roda Contrà S. Andrea, so called due to the existence in medieval times of a small church dedicated to the saint. Someone wrote that above a garage in the street there remains, as evidence of the church, the carved bezel that overlooked the entrance door. I have searched a lot, but I have not had the luck of seeing it. Unless the unknown informant was referring to a square image with a man's head that appears on the wall of a house at the end of the straight part o

Egidio Di Velo in the Vicenza culture of the nineteenth century Count Girolamo Egidio di Velo was born in Vicenza in 1792 from a noble family with vast possessions; he had in the city the Di Velo palace in Carpagnon, so comfortable that it could house the King of Denmark in 1709; in 1808 he also inherited the Montanari palace. After his studies, from 1812 he went on an educational tour in Europe: Paris, Holland, Denmark. He returned to Italy and in 1816 he was in Rome, Nap

VICENZA IN THE CENTER VICENZA IN THE CENTER IN THE CENTER In its tenth year of life it wants to be a community more than ever. Every day with the industrious aperitifs at the well-known meeting places in the historic center, it gathers everyone, with particular regard for lonely people, to exchange opinions, information, even material help and a lot of friendship . To be a cultural association , it organizes study meetings and visits to places of interest, even less known bu

A square, a city ... beautiful A square, a city ... beautiful between beautiful and beautiful there is a difference. I am referring to the name that Vicenza carries with it from the past. But today? UNESCO city. True. But certainly not beautiful, if we look a bit around beyond the "usual" historical living room. But the city is not all there. I pause on Piazza S. Lorenzo . A scenographic, rich square: A cleaned monument dedicated to Giacomo Zanella, the Temple of San Lorenz

Monte Crocetta a hill a stones throw from the city. A mini emotional paradise that in this period of pandemic closures was "discovered"...

My home ! Very funny, really. In the eighteenth-century guides for the first English tourists, this house of mine must have been, certainly not a palace, but worthy of the master of the Quattro Libri . I never bought a house in my Vicenza. It was instead, this house, the notary Cogollo who asked for the citizenship of Vicenza: for this purpose he would have to renovate this facade as a contribution "to the decorum of the city", for no less than 250 ducats. The opportunity

My only Veronese palace , in the heart of the ancient city, a stone's throw from Porta Iovia (today Borsari). Contrada S. Marco was a legacy of the dark ages, a stone's throw from the ruins of the lost world that we were rebuilding anew. Giambattista Della Torre was among those men who could afford to understand, dream and realize this vision. Related to "my" Valmarana and the Thiene , a friend of "my" Giangiorgio Trissino , he asked me to design his small city palace .

My Veronese villa , proof that even as an old man - yes, by now I was - I still knew how to innovate . Until the end. It is not only that Veronese, Spartan rustication, irregular ashlars like rough sections of the mountain, under those unexpected Ionic capitals .. It is not only the powerful grotesque of this idea. It is the idea of ​​an emptiness , inviting, seductive, which brings you - you guest - to the center , welcomed in the property of the Sarego di S.Sofia , in Va