Sept 02 - Ferrera

 Sept 02 - Ferrera 

A trip back to the Estense Castle this morning but this time for the museum, which was, sadly, somewhat disappointing.  The castle itself though is quite a nice building but the interior mainly consists of empty rooms.  To make up for this lack of artefacts there are a load of information boards around the place but unfortunately this makes for a LOT of reading but not much viewing.  Amongst this vast emptiness there are a few rooms that have ceiling frescoes and paintings but most of these are badly in need of restoration, as can be seen by the amount of tape used on the pictures. 

Our next visit was to the Museo Schifanoia, a Renaissance palace built for the Este family (and owners of the above castle) but now a museum.  Although housing small collections of books, coins, statues, and the like, the main standouts here are the frescoes.  One room in particular, the ‘Salone dei Mesi’ (Room of the months), which contains an magnificent series of frescoes showing the months of the year and their mythological attributes, is fantastic! (although I’m not so sure about the attributes! 😆). Definitely worth a visit. 

Our next port of call was to the Museo di Casa Romei, a residence built in the 15th century by one of Ferrara’s wealthier merchants.  Now home to collections of statues and other religious objects from mostly destroyed ancient churches, the standouts once again are the frescoes. The whole place was a great example of how the comfortably well-off lived in the 15th century. 

Our last visit of the day was to another ‘fresco-fest’, this time at the Monastero di St Antonio.  This is a Catholic monastic complex and home to a small group of Benedictine nuns who run the place.  It also houses some fantastic 14th century Giotto, and Giotto school, frescoes.  We had to ring to be let in and then were led around the chapel by a delightful old nun, of about 140!, who could only speak rapid-fire Italian as she showed us the frescoes and told us their stories from the bible.  Fortunately though JEM had had some religious interactions when young and so could explain at least what some of them were about! 🙏😊  





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