VERONA
AS A CITY
STATE
We con start from the Roman monument of the Gavi Arch,
today placed in the small square beside the Scaliger Cstle; it originally
stood in the middle of the road and served as a main gate to the city
walls, major remains of which can be seen in the walls of the castle
itself, a jewel of European architeture of the city-state era: the
postern of Morbio (XII Century), so called after the owner of the
farm-holding which opened out on the banks of the river. To the east,
the wall is hidden by the houses in Via Roma, but one can still se the
Tower (in Via Manin), rebuilt on the site of an older tower
dating from the times of the tyrant Ezzelino (XIII Century) and a
previous city tower of the XII Century.
AAnother tower dating from the city-state period is even large, again
built by Ezzelino and subsequently rebuilt several times: the
Pentagonal tower, to the side of the Bra Gates opening
out into the Corso Porta Nuova, which runs on the western side of
the Visconti "Citadel".
Passing on through the Piazza Bra, the walls rebuilt in the Scaliger
period reappear, but there are also important remains of the internal
city state walls in Via Adigetto, so called as there once flowed here
a natural branch of the River Adige starting south of the Scaliger
castle and re-entering the Adige itself at the Straw Tower
(Aleardi Bridge). The city -state wall stood a little inside the present-day
route of the Stradone Maffei and the Stradone S. Fermo, the latter
named after the ancient Benedictine Convent run by the Franciscans:
it was a customs/port area which passed thruogh the Via Postumia
joining the Cardo Massimo.
The heart of the free commune area of Verona is Piazza Erbe,
on the southern side of which stands the Domus Mercatorum
(XII Century), and, on the other side, the solid Communal Tower
standing alongside the later, more elegant Lamberti Tower; the
Piazza Dante, surrounded by the Palace of Justice, the
Communal Palace, and the "Palazzo dei Signori"; the Old
Market Square, a wonderful example of building style in the free
commune era. These are joined and interspersed by streets and alleys
to the river or the Cathedral, narrow and outside the Roman stree plan,
fortified with full-scale stronghold houses, such as the one in Via Arche
Known as Romeo's House, a complex dings standing between
Corso S. Anastasia and Via Emilei, Where the Gallery of Modern and
Contemporary Art is Housed. It is the fortess palace of tyrant
Ezzelino da Romano.
The other part of the city-state area of Verona lies across the Adige,
around the more ancient Cathedral of Verona, the current Church of
S. Stefano, up to the Valdonega suburb, a Longobard site.
Also dating from the Longobard period are the foundations, in the
small valley to the east, of the Church of S. Giovanni in Valle,
the Germanic Cathedral of "barbaric"Verona.
