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Information
Visits: access to via D’Azeglio is free without limitations. Lucio Dalla’s house is opened only on certain periods of the year.
Position: click here to reach v. D’Azeglio
Description
When, years ago, it became a pedestrian area along with the area of Piazza Maggiore and Piazza del Nettuno, the protests rose of those who proclaimed the certain death of the street. Instead, via D’Azeglio quickly became the “good living room” of Bologna. It is a place full of elegant shops and cafes. Perfect for walking and lingering in conversation despite being one of the few streets in the center almost entirely without porticos.
The “living room“, which is almost an ideal extension of the square, closes at the intersection with via Farini. The next section of Via D’Azeglio, up to Porta San Mamolo, looks quite different, if not because it is open to traffic. However, in this part of the road there are the most beautiful buildings, such as the splendid Renaissance palace with a particular bossage façade, which belonged to the Sanuti, and where in 1547 three sessions of the Council of Trent took place.
Lucio Dalla: musician and singer songwriter
The unforgettable musician and songwriter from Bologna who disappeared in 2012 seems to have never departed from Bologna. Where he was born in 1943. Lucio, who lived in a large house overlooking Via D’Azeglio and Piazza dei Celestini, was easy to find everywhere around Bologna. Particularly between Piazza Maggiore and Via dei Coltelli where he had opened an art gallery. But also at the Dall’Ara stadium to support Bologna and Palasport or Unipol Arena when Virtus played.
Every night, after the clock of Palazzo d’Accursio has beaten six tolls, between the houses and the streets in that part of town where Dalla lived and exchanged words with everyone, the notes of one of his songs spread. The verses of one of the most beautiful, Cara, are engraved on his tomb, next to that of Carducci at the entrance near the stadium of the monumental cemetery of Certosa: “Now I turn off the light and so be it“.
Curiosità of via d’Azeglio
Between Via D’Azeglio and piazza Galvani, joined by two narrow streets, there is a court where time seems to have stopped in the Middle Ages, if it were not for the sparkling shop windows in the adjacent streets. Inside the courtyard, named after the Galluzzi family, stands the tower of the same name erected in 1257, thirty-two meters tall. The Galluzzi were proud supporters of the Guelph side and enemies of the Carbonese family, almost their neighbors, openly standing with the Ghibellines.
The uncontrollable passion in 1259 between Malatesta dei Carbonesi and Virginia Galluzzi complicated things. A marriage that wasn’t going to happen. But the two did not lose heart and, with the help of a trusted housekeeper, organized the nightly escape of the young man from the father’s tower. The presence of Virginia in the house of the Carbonesi enemies armed the hands of the whole Galluzzi family, ready to spill blood. The two lovers were found in the bedroom. Consequently, the poor Malatesta was suffocated with a bedsheet while the young girl, saved by relatives, decided to put an end to her life by hanging herself in the same sheet from a balcony.
According to the legend, they were buried together in the church of San Giacomo dei Carbonesi, which was at the corner between Via D’Azeglio and Via de ‘Carbonesi. Demolished in 1822, there remains only a tombstone on that spot to remember it.
Position: click here to reach Corte Galluzzi
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