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Torricelle

Geography of VeronaHills of ItalyVerona
View over the Italian city of Verona
View over the Italian city of Verona

The Torricelle (Toresele in Veronese dialect) are the hills that surround the city of Verona to the north. The hills have been an integral part of the urban landscape since the founding of the city, whose first settlements in pre-Roman times saw the light of day on these very heights. From an orographic point of view, the Torricelle are the extreme southern offshoot of the Lessini Mountains included between Valpolicella and Valpantena; they therefore belong to the sector of the Venetian Prealps. In addition to various places of worship, villas and private homes, part of the Veronese city walls of the Scaligeri era are developed on the Torricelle, and various military fortifications built during the Austrian domination can still be found, which have become today a characteristic element of the Veronese hill and city landscape.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Torricelle (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Torricelle
Strada Castellana, Verona Borgo Venezia

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 45.459444 ° E 11.010556 °
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Address

Strada Castellana 36c
37142 Verona, Borgo Venezia
Veneto, Italy
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View over the Italian city of Verona
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Nearby Places

Church of San Giovanni in Valle
Church of San Giovanni in Valle

The church of San Giovanni in Valle is a Catholic place of worship located on the street of the same name in Verona. One of the oldest churches in Verona, it arose on the site of a pagan necropolis and a Roman temple. Little or nothing is known about the early building, however some elements, such as its location in the area where the castrum of Theodoric the Great stood (in the vallum of the castle, hence the name), suggest that in the beginning it may have been the Arian cathedral of Verona, as opposed to the Catholic church of Santo Stefano. In any case, only part of the present crypt remains of this early church, as the rest of the building was severely damaged in the earthquake that struck Verona in 1117. As early as 1120 the reconstruction of what would later be the present building in the Romanesque style began, while in 1164 its consecration took place at the hands of the bishop of Verona Ognibene. During the Middle Ages a collegiate church of clerics also resided there. In 1300 it was decided to enlarge the hall of the building by lengthening the nave by one bay, the pre-existing narthex was then incorporated into the church and the facade rebuilt from scratch. During the following centuries the building did not undergo any other major transformations, however, it was deeply damaged during a World War II bombing raid; at the end of the conflict, therefore, it underwent extensive restoration. The church building, which is one of the masterpieces of Veronese Romanesque style, is characterized by a basilica plan divided into three naves by the alternation of pillars and columns, while the vertical development is on three levels: a raised presbytery, the hall and the lower crypt. Of notable value are the elegant carved capitals placed to crown the columns. The walls, once entirely frescoed, now show only a few fragments of paintings ruined by time and moisture. In the crypt, next to the high altar, are kept two valuable sarcophagi: one dating from the 4th century features a bas-relief sculpture on three sides in two overlapping orders with stories from the Old and New Testaments narrated and in which tradition holds the relics of the apostles Simon the Canaanite and Judas Thaddeus; the other, which is older (2nd or 3rd century), is a strigilated sarcophagus from the pagan period with depictions in the center of two spouses in a shell above a rural scene and with two figures of philosophers later transformed into Christian saints on either side. The complex is completed by a bell tower, Romanesque in its lower part and of Renaissance style in its upper part, a cloister of which only one wing remains, and the rectory that was once the seat of the collegiate church and is now one of the oldest civil buildings to be found in the city.

Palazzo Giusti
Palazzo Giusti

The Giusti Palace and Garden (Italian: Palazzo e giardino Giusti) are located in the east of Verona, Italy, a short distance from Piazza Isolo and near the city centre. The palace was built in the sixteenth century. The garden is considered one of the finest examples of an Italian garden. The palace is a 16th-century Mannerist structure with a tower added in 1701. The Italian Renaissance gardens were planted in 1580 and are regarded as some of the most beautiful Renaissance gardens in Europe, a splendid park of terraces climbing upon the hill. They include a parterre and hedge maze, and expansive vistas of the surrounding landscape from the terrace gardens. First, only two square parterres right and left hand of the cypress way were designed, and a maze behind the right one, as figured in Nürnbergische Hesperides in 1714. Some years later, four additional flower parterres were laid out left hand, as to be seen at a map in the Verona State Archives. The booklet, Il paradiso de' Fiori by Francesco Pona (1622) informs about the plants used in this time in Giardino Giusti as does also some planting sketches by Pona included in the new edition of this book, Milano 2006. The actual unifying layout of the garden parterres dates from early 20th century. The maze was reconstructed after 1945. The Giusti family, owner of the palace since the 16th century, was entitled by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor to change its original surname to "Giusti del Giardino" because of the importance of the gardens. In 2020, the garden was hit by a severe storm, causing severe damage to the plants and killing a lot of the trees, including the 600-year old Goethe cypress. The garden has since this incident been added to Europa Nostra's "7 Most Endangered" list of heritage sites at risk.