Good Friday

In Italy, Good Friday is not a public holiday; shops, banks, etc. typically remain open for their normal business hours.  The public holiday here is Easter Monday, or Pasquetta ("little Easter").  However, many towns - including our comune - have some type of Good Friday Procession or similar event.

Here, one half of the participants marched from one side of town carrying a statue of the Virgin in order to meet up in the middle of the central street with the other half of the group, who were carrying a coffin containing an effigy of the deceased Christ and coming from the other side of town.  The local priest then gave a sermon or speech from one of the balconies (I couldn't understand much of what he was saying).  He came back down and led the entire procession back to the church.

Here is a link to the video I filmed of the procession (it's about 13 minutes long).  And I took a few photos as well:

Procession with the coffin coming from the "monastery" side of town

Virgin Mary coming from the "church" end of town

The guy in the blue coat and jeans with white hair is our landlord

Priest doing his priestly thing on the balcony with the red banner

Processing back to the church.  I didn't follow them because I already had a glass of wine waiting for me at the bar.  And also I wouldn't want the altar to burst into flames and ruin everyone's good time.

Most of the residents of the comune seemed to be out in the streets, either participating in the procession or watching it from the sidelines.  Once the festivities were over, the bar filled up pretty quickly - perhaps because there was a Serie A soccer game to watch on the big screen...?  

Tomorrow we will be making the drive - about 4 hours - up to Senigallia, as my cousin kindly invited us to visit and spend the night at her apartment there.  For Pasquetta, we will (finally!) get to see the town of Corinaldo, where my great grandfather was born!  

Tuesday: Full of Bologna

On the recommendation of our B&B hosts, we started off Tuesday with a visit to the Biblioteca Salaborsa, the main public library in Bologna, located in part of the Palazzo d'Accursio on the Piazza del Nettuno:

See the three greenish panels to the lower left of the building?  These are discussed below...

One feature that makes this library unique is the ancient Roman archaeological site in its basement.  You can view parts of it through the floors of the library, and you can also walk through the site itself, which we did:

Note the glass panels above - overhead is the library proper

Another interesting feature of the Salaborsa is located on the exterior of the building - a large WWII memorial dedicated to murdered local partisans of the Resistance movement.  There are 2000+ photos that make up the memorial - and there are several with the name of Grandi.  I have no idea if any of them can be found in my family tree, but I was intrigued, so took photos of all the Grandi portraits I could view (Atlas Obscura has a much better picture of the full memorial here):

Next, Paolo wanted to visit the Museo Civico Medievale, a relatively short walk away.  We crossed the Piazza Maggiore, and encountered a large but peaceful gathering of various women's groups giving speeches, lecturing, and carrying protest signs to mark International Women's Day:

On our way to the museum, we stumbled across two churches that we couldn't resist visiting.  The first was the Cattedrale Metropolitana di San Pietro (Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Peter):

"Compianto sul Cristo morto" (translates to "Lament over the Dead Christ"), by Alfonso Lombardi; from the 1500s.  His works can be seen in several places around Bologna.

 The second church we visited was just across the street from the museum:  Chiesa di Filippini Madonna di Galliera e Filippo Neri (kind of a mouthful to say).  The façade is from the Renaissance period but the interior is Baroque:

Close(er) up of the main altar

A stained glass window I liked - I need to learn a better way to capture these with my iPhone

Detail from the floor

We stepped across the street to the Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava, which today houses the Medieval Museum (at one point in its history, it housed fascisti).  This museum was well worth the visit; not only were the artefacts interesting, but the palazzo was the perfect setting for their display:

Shoes!  I can't walk in modern-day high heels; I'd break my neck trying to walk in the shoes on the left.

The interesting thing about this memorial to a medieval university professor is that it still has some of the original pigment on it after all this time - quite rare

San Petronio doing his thing

From a display of glassware; the white chalice to the right is Murano glass (not sure about the blue one)

One of the few remaining memorials from what had been a nearby Jewish cemetery that was taken over and destroyed by an order of medieval nuns

Note the gorgeous beams in the painted ceiling

We spent quite a bit of time exploring this museum.  By the time we were through, we (well, I) was quite hungry for lunch - and it was a bit late for lunch by that point.  So, we did something I'm a bit ashamed to admit, but here goes:  we ate at McDonald's.

I can confirm that McDonald's is just as bad in Italy as it is in the US.  However, I justified it to myself by the fact that we were doing a lot of walking, which would hopefully mitigate somewhat all the unnecessary fat, salt, and calories.

Although we'd already seen some really fantastic things, the final gem on the day's to-do list was a visit to the Santo Stefano complex, which is composed of several churches of various ages.  The buildings contain the (alleged) sarcophagi of Saint Vitale and Saint Agricola; a marble column which purportedly grants you 200 years' worth of indulgence every time you visit it; medieval frescoes; and other fascinating items.  There were a couple of parts of the complex that were closed when we visited, but what we did see was pretty outstanding:

Old pulpit.  The interior of the pulpit (behind the barred window) used to house relics of San Petronio, since moved to his own church

200 years off Purgatory for each of us! 🙄

St. Vitale

St. Agricola

San Paolo 😜

Pilate's Courtyard

Inevitable War Memorial

We ended our day with dinner at 051 Osteria, on a side street just off the Piazza Maggiore.  Note that there are quite a few restaurants and businesses (including our B&B) with "051" in the name.  It was explained to us that "051" was the original telephone exchange for Bologna; today the 051 in the name of a restaurant or other business indicates that such a place offers an authentic Bolognese experience.  I have no idea whether or not this is actually true, or just a story they tell to the stranieri (foreigners) - but I will say that in our personal experiences, it was certainly the case.  Our dinner was delicious:

Starters:  mortadella (of course) and tortellini in brodo

I had the cotoletta alla Bolognese (this Bolognese dish is somewhat similar to Vienna's Wiener schnitzel).  That red machine next to Paolo is an antique meat slicer.

Mimosa - the servers handed these out to all the ladies in the restaurant; these flowers are the traditional symbol of International Women's Day

Meat!

View of the bar

Next up:  Wednesday's activities.

Edit:  This is to include some final pictures of the IWD events going on that night, which we passed on our way back to our B&B.  Note the high police presence - this seemed excessive to me as it was all quite peaceful: