Visitors to this site: All images are copyrighted to Allan Langdale but feel free to take any you might find useful as long as you give me a credit. Thanks.
This church is dedicated to St. Petronius, who was an early Bishop of Bologna from the early 5th century, and who is the patron saint of Bologna. The facade, which is unfinished even today, is best known for the reliefs surrounding main portal. These reliefs were executed by the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia between 1425-38. For other works by della Quercia, go to the Siena page to see his work on the Fonte Gaia.
Two enormous towers pierce the skyline of the city of Bologna, the Garisenda and the Ansinelli (constructed in 1100 and 1109 AD respectively). Such towers were not uncommon features of the medieval and Renaissance period cities in Italy. Italian city states were not always peaceful places, and local families controlling neighbourhoods or quartieri of the cities often warred with each other. These towers were veritable fortresses in the middle of the city, and enabled one family to 'keep an eye' on their enemies nearby. San Gimignano, near Florence, is exceptional in that 13 such towers survive, though none are as tall as the ones in Bologna. The Ansinelli tower is 69 meters high (225 ft.).
Jacopo della Quercia went to Bologna and worked on the reliefs for the central portal of San Petronio from 1425-38. The figures, strongly outlined and sparsely modelled, are elegant and expressive, offering an interesting stylistic counterpart to bronze works by Ghiberti and Donatello in Florence. The fact that these are stone reliefs and, say, Ghiberti's North Baptistry doors are bronze, invites one to consider how some of the differences might be related to the techniques of the different media.The following images show della Quercia's versions of events from the book of Genesis: the creation of Adam and Eve, the Temptation in the Garden of Eden, and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
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