Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita & Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna, Italy, as seen from one of the Two Towers of Bologna.
This image shows Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita (foreground) and Basilica di San Petronio (background) in Bologna, Italy, as seen from Asinelli, one of the Two Towers of Bologna. The Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Vita is a late-Baroque-style, Roman Catholic church in central Bologna, near the Piazza Maggiore. The construction of the present Baroque church began in 1687-1690 under the designs of Giovanni Battista Bergonzoni, who built the elliptical plan with a dome designed by Giuseppe Tubertini, completed in 1787. The facade was not added till 1905. The sanctuary houses the sculptural group of Sorrow over Dead Christ (1463) by Niccolò dell'Arca. The Basilica of San Petronio is the main church of Bologna. It dominates Piazza Maggiore. It is the fifteenth largest church in the world. The Torre dei Prendiparte is one of Bologna’s few surviving towers. It is also called “The Crowned” because of a crown-like crenulation pattern in the brick at the top. Built in the second half of the 12th century, it is 61 metres tall with a pinnacle at the top. Like the Asinelli and Garisenda towers, this one also leans slightly. The Two Towers (Le due torri / Due Torri), both of them leaning, are the symbol of Bologna, Italy, and the most prominent of the Towers of Bologna. They are located at the intersection of the roads that lead to the five gates of the old ring wall (mura dei torresotti). The taller one is called the Asinelli while the smaller but more leaning tower is called the Garisenda. Their names derive from the families which are traditionally credited for their construction between 1109 and 1119. However, the scarcity of documents from this early period makes this in reality rather uncertain. The name of the Asinelli family, for example, is documented for the first time actually only in 1185, almost 70 years after the presumed construction of the tower which is attributed to them.
Size: 5184px × 3456px
Location: Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, Bologna, Italy.
Photo credit: © Stuart Robertson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: architectural, architecture, basilica, bologna, building, buildings, color, colour, della, destination, destinations, di, dome, due, emilia-romagna, europe, exterior, exteriors, famous, historic, history, horizontal, image, italia, italian, italiana, italy, landscape, maria, outdoors, people, petronio, place, religion, repubblica, republic, san, santa, santuario, spectacular, stunning, torri, tourist, towers, travel, urban, view, vita, worship, wp
