Another day of bright sun greeted us as we were off after breakfast to the near-by Renaissance Palazzo Diamante (Biagio Rossetti 1493-1503) which is home to the National Art Collection of Ferrara.
We discovered a new-to-us local Mannerist painter, Garofolo, whose paintings were remarkable:
il Palazzo Diamante also houses an interesting medieval art collection and other early Renaissance paintings
To our surprise, one of the unexpected highlights of Ferrara was the Cathedral Museum.
the columns on one side of the intimate cloister
a stunning room full of Renaissance tapestries exquisitely executed by local Ferrarese craftsmen on designs by Maestro from Flanders
and a collection of medieval stone work from 1225 – notice the fine craftsmanship below in the photos of details
an amazing 1250 bas relief depicting a hunting and grape harvest scene
below: an entire room dedicated to 22 Ferrara Cathedral choir books of the mid 1400s
beautiful ceiling decorations
our usual ritual of lighting two candles for Mar and Michael before leaving
off across the street to F.R.1971 for a cup of dark artisanal hot chocolate – the best we have ever had!
all-chocolate Christmas trees
blowing bubbles and a boutique for Fido
a fun stroll through the Christmas market where we picked up dried (not-candied) slices of mango, papaya, melon, tangerines and oranges for my Christmas baking
Our art-filled day ended in yet another of the typical trattorie to enjoy le coppie (typical bread), salama da sugo with purèe and the famous cappellacci which are still made exactly as they were at the Este Court in 1450.
