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# 81 JULY 18 , 2016
# 81 juLY 18 , 2016
read more #Italian Little Italies
ITALIAN LITTLE ITALIES:
Sabbioneta The ideal
city of the Renaissance
By I Borghi più belli d’Italia
Enlightenment scholars
called Sabbioneta “the
little Athens of the Po”,
considering it as the true
Renaissance “ideal city”, it
is actually a “little Rome”
created by the maecenas
prince Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna on the model
of ancient Roman cities.
Vespasiano, being viceroy of Navarre, had alre-
ady designed the citadel
of Pamplona in Spain, and
when he chose to build
his own State-city in his
native land, he designed
it with an urban planning
that takes into account the
Renaissance
functional
and modern vision.
has the form of a six-pointed star with public spaces
and monuments playing
an important role in the
city life. In Sabbioneta there is a dreamlike dimension, a sort of calm madness due to the fact that
the urban structure has
not been altered, as it was
The town has a grid plan blocked in 1591, like a city
and the urban structure petrified in its evolution
16 | WE THE ITALIANS
WE THE ITALIANS | 17
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