The Big Bologna

Today, it houses one of Italy’s largest libraries, with more than 800,000 tomes. On the day I visit, earnest students are bustling through the high doorway and just above, in an elegant panelled chamber, a group of open-mouthed German tourists are listening to a description of the first official dissection of the human body, which took place here in the 17th century. At a time when such an act would have been deemed heretical in other European cities, here within earshot of th e cathedral bells the public were permitted to attend, the brightest and best of Bolognese society sitting enthralled as learned professors prodded and carved at cadavers and body parts, usually sourced from prisons and the gallows.

Nearby, at the university museums housed in the Palazzo Poggi, I find the original marble dissection table, suitably stained and scored by years of autopsies. In another gallery of the museum, detailed wax models of human anatomy made by artist Ercole Lelli in the 1700s are definitely not for the fainthearted.

So it’s some relief to leave the macabre exhibitions for the bright sunshine of Via Zamboni. Right at the end of the road, I stand looking up at two gigantic towers, one leaning at an alarming angle. They were built in the 12th century as a place of refuge for Bologna’s wealthy families during times of war, and I scale the more vertical of the two, climbing 500 worn wooden steps to the top of the Torre Degli Asinelli, 97m above the city.

From here, it is a stupendous view. The clear line of the old Via Emilia bisects Bologna, heading east through the rich farmlands of the Po valley to the distant ramparts of the Apennine mountains. To the north, beyond a skyline of church steeples, a large stadium looms, a temple to a more recent Bolognese passion. Also known as “Basket City”, Bologna grinds to a halt when its two top basketball teams Virtus and Fortitudo play each other.

That evening, I walk through the maze of streets close to the cathedral where tiny specialist shops have a bewildering variety of food on display. There’s everything from three-year-old parmesan (the colour, if not quite the cost of 24-carat gold), and elaborate mortadella, the large smoked sausage studded with pistachio or green olives for which Bologna is renowned. In the porticoes outside Bolognese institution Caffè Zanarini just behind the cathedral, the aperitivo is in full swing, with friends meeting for a drink before supper, in this most social of cities.

Sipping a frothy lambrusco from the vineyards close to the city, and eating a delicious slice of crumbling parmesan, I begin to appreciate to what heights the people of this city have refined the art of living well.

Next morning, in my cooking class, Signor Alessandra nods approvingly as I finish my dough and hold it up for her inspection. “Transparent enough to see San Luca – the chapel beyond the city walls,” she says. For lunch, we dine on a range of specialities she has prepared, from delicate tortellini, to a wonderful green lasagne made from a recipe she learnt as a five year old in her grandmother’s kitchen. I also meet two American students who are spending a day in Bologna before heading to Florence. “A day is not enough, nor even a week,” she says, smiling. “It’s like making pasta – to understand it well, you really have to take your time.”