Basilica di San Petronio
The facade is clad in a mixture of different colored marble quarried in far off Lombardy and brought down to Bologna in great blocks down the Ticino, Mincio and Po Rivers and finally up the Reno to the port of Bologna,
Basilica di San Petronio is a curious structure. Perhaps the strangest thing about it is that it is obviously unfinished. The common answer is that they simply ran out of money but I don’t buy that, Bologna was too prosperous then (and now). At first I had a theory that the Black Death might have something to do with it, perhaps the decimated population and loss of artists and skilled workman was a factor, but my theory doesn’t seem likely as the Black Death was primarily before breaking ground in 1390 and then again much later in the 1500’s. There is one story that shed some light on the mystery, Bologna had intentions of making San Petronio the largest church in Europe and when news of this reached Pope Pius IV he was not pleased and redirected funds to build a rival church elsewhere in town, diverting funds and workforce. It ranks now as the 6th largest church in Europe.
Inside is immaculate and grand. 22 chapels line the left and right sides. One honoring the crowning of Charles V that occurred here by a different Pope Clement VII in 1530 with beautiful stained glass.
The most controversial chapel is the third one in on the left, the Bolognini Chapel commissioned in Bartolomeo Bolognini's will of 1408, in it he asked artist Giovanni da Modena to depict Paradise and below that an Inferno 'as horrible as possible'. The result is a terrifyingly violent painting full of demons and gore and one small image of Muhammad (spelled “Machomet”) as an old man being devoured by a demon - why? I don’t know. In recent years Al Queda has tried twice to blow up the building so now there are Italian Army Regulars, in fatigues and boots, who man the entrance and the perimeter. The Bolognini Chapel is roped off so that you can only view it from odd angles (unless you pay a small fee — which I did!)
Cassini (who we all know as part of the Cassini–Huygens space probe) installed an impressive Meridian Line across one half of the church, a small aperture in the rooftop allows the light in and you can see basically what day it is spotlit on the floor, however I’ve gone in several times and each time it’s been too overcast or downright rainy to see the effect.