01 August 08

Features

The Big Bologna

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It’s a city of many faces and names, relecting a love of food, learning and even basketball. Nick Haslam spends some time there to found out why

it’s the perfect way to spend my last morning in “La Grassa”, or the “Fat One”, as Bologna – famous throughout Italy for its rich culinary traditions – is affectionately known to most Italians. In the kitchen of Alessandra Spisni, leading Bolognese chef, TV star and high priestess of Italian cuisine, I have rolled up my sleeves for a masterclass on handmade pasta. Wielding a metre-long rolling pin, Alessandra and her brother Alessandro take our small group of students through the lengthy process of kneading the dough, then rolling it delicately into a fine, thin, circular sheet.

“The table is a vital part of life in Bologna. We spend much time in the kitchen, preparing meals, eating together and talking. Money is not so important here, unlike other Italian cities. Here it is food, wine and friends that really count,” she says, showing me how to stretch the pasta with an expert flip of the rolling pin.

After spending three days in Bologna I can only agree. With so many tiny, specialist food shops, innumerable trattorie and pavement cafés, it is obvious that living well has been a vital part of Bolognese existence for a very long time. The city started out as a humble colony more than 2,000 years ago on the Via Emilia, a principal artery of the Roman Empire. Today, its heart is a dense blend of palaces, piazzas and narrow cobbled streets, in a medieval, baroque and renaissance maze, overlooked by 13th-century ramparts.

The mellow, red brick of its historic centre – one of the best preserved in Europe – has given the city its second nickname, “La Rossa”, or the “Red One”. This is reinforced by Bologna’s reputation as a fiery hotbed of socialism, having been the first city in Italy to elect a communist town council.

Today, the politics are more muted, but Bologna is also the seat of Europe’s oldest university, with about a quarter of the city’s 450,000- strong popluation being students. They bring a radical cosmopolitan energy with them, as well as maintaining Bologna’s third nickname, “La Dotta”, or the “Learned One”.

The university first opened its doors in 1088, and changed the face of Bologna. In the 12th and 13th centuries, students came in increasing numbers. Wooden arcades were hastily constructed for accommodation, and over the centuries the crude timber piles were replaced by elegant, arched brick porticoes. Today, more than 38km of covered arcades have become part of the civic space of the city, housing cafés and shops, and providing the perfect place for Bolognese to meet and exchange gossip.

In Piazza Maggiore, stands the massive bulk of San Petronio, the fifth-largest basilica in the world. It was left unfinished in the 16th century on orders from Rome, when papal authorities, in a fit of jealous pique, realised that the building would be larger than St Peter’s in Rome. The Archiginnasio was built instead, a graceful building of porticoes around a central courtyard, to bring all university disciplines under one roof.