Architectural Posters of Verona

Verona: Two Thousand Years of Urban Architecture

These five architectural posters lead from the Roman Arena through the medieval market centre to the palaces and churches of the nineteenth century. Verona is defined by this coexistence of periods: ancient streets and monuments remained points of reference while the Scaliger family, the Venetian Republic and later patrons reshaped the city layer by layer.

AP 123 · The Arena of Verona

The amphitheatre was built around the middle of the first century AD outside the city wall of the time. Its elliptical form accommodated some 30,000 spectators, directing them through a system of arches, stairs and vaulted passages to the seating. White and pink limestone from Valpolicella, brick and other regional materials were used in its construction. Only the section known as the Ala survives from the outermost façade ring; the seating visible today was reconstructed from the late sixteenth century onwards. AP 123 opens the building in an axonometric cutaway, clarifying the relationship between arena, cavea and supporting vaults. Since a performance of Verdi’s Aida in 1913, the ancient monument has also been renowned as an opera venue.

AP 527 and AP 311 · Piazza delle Erbe

Piazza delle Erbe occupies the site of the Roman forum and retained its role as an economic and social centre. Its elongated perimeter brings together the old Town Hall, the Torre dei Lamberti, the frescoed Case Mazzanti, the medieval Domus Mercatorum and the Baroque Palazzo Maffei. Façade painting was so widespread in Verona that the city acquired the sixteenth-century epithet urbs picta, the painted city. The column of Saint Mark also recalls Venetian rule from 1405. AP 527 presents one side of the square in colour with its soaring towers and civic buildings; AP 311 complements it with a long panorama of the irregularly accumulated houses opposite.

AP 408 and AP 122 · Palaces, Churches and Public Buildings

AP 408 assembles Veronese palace façades from the twelfth century to 1850. Direct comparison makes their development legible: narrow medieval houses and Romanesque arcades give way to regularly ordered Renaissance palaces, imposing Baroque elevations and more restrained Neoclassical fronts. AP 122 extends this typology to public and religious architecture from the first century AD to 1850. Churches, towers, gates, loggias and monumental utilitarian buildings are arranged at comparable scale on a single sheet. Together the two surveys explain why Verona is distinguished not by one style but by the unusual continuity of its architectural history.