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 | Piacenza Downtown car rental - Travel Guide |  |
PIACENZA marks the end of the Via Emilia and the border with Lombardy. It's a small, unassuming city, its attractions often passed over in favour of Parma or Modena , and, despite a small industrial district across the Po, there's a definite feeling of grass growing between the tracks. Travellers are scarce enough to attract a few stares as they cross the main square, and although it's interesting enough to merit perhaps half a day of your time, you'd probably be better off staying in one of the Via Emilia's more animated centres, if not pressing on to Milan.
The Town
Piazza dei Cavalli marks the centre of town, so called because of its two famous bronze equestrian statues, one on each side of the square, often quoted as being among the finest examples of Baroque sculpture. Cast in the early part of the seventeenth century by Francesco Mochi, a pupil of Giambologna, they're impressive works certainly, convincingly poised for action. One of the riders is Alessandro Farnese, a mercenary for Philip II of Spain; the other his son Ranuccio I. Behind, the Palazzo de Comune , "Il Gotico", is a fine red-brick palace, built in 1280 - an elegant example of Lombard-Gothic architecture, topped by fishtail battlements.
The church of San Francesco , just off the square, dates from the same period and sports an imposing Gothic interior. West of here, back towards the train station, the main shopping street of Via XX Settembre leads down to the Duomo , a grand Lombard-Romanesque church that has been altered many times since it was built between 1122 and 1233. The interior is lovely, with a high, plain nave supported by stout columns and cupola decorated with frescoes by Guercino - though these may be more difficult to see than the fine frescoes in the transepts and apses. From the duomo, follow Via Chiapponi up to the church of San Antonino - known as "Il Paradiso" for the twelfth-century bas-reliefs on its portal. Beyond, a couple of minutes' walk away from here on Via San Siro, the Galleria Ricci-Oddi with its collection of nineteenth-century Italian art, is closed for restoration.
The other place to visit in Piacenza is the Museo Civico (Tues-Sat 9.30-11am, Sun 10.30am-noon, plus Sat & Sun also 2.30-4pm; L4500/?2.32). It holds displays of Romanesque and later sculpture, roomfuls of armour and weapons, lots of paintings, including a depiction of the Madonna and Child with John the Baptist by Botticelli, and, in the same room, the so-called " fegato di Piacenza ". Very much the star exhibit of the museum, this is a bronze Etruscan representation of a sliced sheep's liver, marked with the names of Etruscan deities, that was (like real sheep livers) used to divine the future. As for the building, it's a huge affair, begun by Paciotto in 1558 and only half completed by Vignola some years later for the Farnese family: one room is still decorated with heroic frescoes of Alessandro Farnese, though most were carted off to Naples by the Bourbons, where they remain.
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