Dante in exile
The brooding marble amid his hosts' square — gratitude carved.
Didier Descouens — CC BY-SA 4.0 · This Photo was taken by Andrea Bertozzi. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. — CC BY-SA 4.0 · This Photo was taken by Andrea Bertozzi. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. — CC BY-SA 4.0 · This Photo was taken by Andrea Bertozzi. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. — CC BY-SA 4.0
One step under the whale-rib arch moves you from the Erbe market's clamour into a throne room's gravity: the Signori is Verona's court of state — no vendors, no umbrellas, but the palaces of rule linked arm in arm by arches and passages: the medieval Palazzo della Ragione, the slender Renaissance Loggia del Consiglio — by old consensus Verona's most beautiful building — and the della Scala palaces where Dante lived as guest. Dante himself stands at centre in pensive marble since 1865: the exile sheltered by Verona's lords, who repaid them kindly in the Comedy — and the historic café on the corner has served coffee in his shadow under his name for two centuries. The square completes in its small neighbour: the fenced courtyard of the Scaliger Tombs, Gothic canopies hanging the lords' graves in the air above their church — medieval Europe's strangest, proudest funerary art.
The brooding marble amid his hosts' square — gratitude carved.
Early-Renaissance grace with a gilded front — Verona's civic jewel.
The palaces of rule arch-linked around solemn space.
Piazza dei Signori, 37121 Verona
Loggia del ConsiglioFive ancient Romans have stood along the roofline since 1493, looking down on th1 minute walk4.7
Palazzo del CapitanioA palace on Piazza dei Signori in the heart of Verona, the seat of the Venetian 1 minute walk4.7
The Scaliger TombsIn a small fenced court behind Piazza dei Signori rise the Scaliger Tombs: the g1 minute walk4.6
Palazzo della RagioneA complex of twelfth-century buildings between Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei 1 minute walk4.4
Scala della RagioneAn external stone staircase in the Mercato Vecchio courtyard in central Verona, 1 minute walk4.6When Florence exiled its poet he sheltered with Verona's lords — Cangrande above all — living here through Comedy-writing years and immortalising his host's praise in Paradiso. Florence built him a repentant empty tomb; Verona kept a square he actually lived in — an irony its people relish.
Pure pride: lords unwilling to lie underground like commoners raised their sarcophagi on Gothic canopies above their own church — Cangrande over its door, smiling on horseback. Funerary architecture without twin: the dead keeping watch over their city.
A contemplative half hour walks Erbe, Signori and the tombs — but the right way is crossing them repeatedly: morning for market, noon for shade, evening for lit marble; every route passes anyway.