Bologna's Porticoes: 62 Kilometres of Arcades and Why the City Built Them

You can cross most of central Bologna in the rain without an umbrella. The city is lined with porticoes, covered arcades along the front of its buildings, about 62 kilometres of them in all. They're so much part of the place that UNESCO listed them as a World Heritage Site in 2021.

They started as a land grab. In the Middle Ages Bologna was crowded with students and craftsmen, and owners pushed their upper floors out over the street on wooden beams to gain space. The city stepped in, and a statute of 1288 made porticoes compulsory along new buildings, privately owned but open to everyone. That deal still holds. You walk on someone's property, under their roof, every time you cross town.

The photo below is the effect after dark. Arcades on both sides of the street, orange walls lit from below, a statue on its pedestal at the junction, and people walking, cycling and standing under the arches in the warm light. At night the porticoes become the city's living room.

Reading the porticoes

Look up and you can date them. The oldest are wooden, with tall beams and simple brackets; a few survive, the best known on Strada Maggiore. Later ones are brick, then stone, and the grandest, along the main streets near Piazza Maggiore, are Renaissance and later, with carved capitals, painted vaults and marble paving.

Height mattered too. Rules required them tall enough for a man on horseback to ride through, which is why they feel so roomy compared with arcades in other Italian cities.

Not every portico is grand. Some of the most charming are in the university district, low and battered, plastered with posters and filled with bikes and students. That's still the original job: shelter for everyday life.

The longest one

The portico of San Luca runs about 3.8 kilometres from Porta Saragozza, at the edge of the old town, up the hill to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. It's traditionally counted at 666 arches. It was built in the 17th and 18th centuries so pilgrims could carry the Madonna's icon up the hill without getting wet.

Walking it takes about an hour, the last half steeply uphill. Locals do it as a workout. At the top, the sanctuary and its terrace look out over the city and the hills toward the Apennines. Go in the late afternoon, and take the little tourist train down if your legs give up.

Bologna after the porticoes

When you've walked enough, eat. Bologna is the home of tortellini, tagliatelle al ragù and mortadella, and the old market streets off Piazza Maggiore are the place to start. Then climb the Asinelli tower if it's open, or just walk the arcades again after dinner, when the lamps come on.

More on the city at night: Bologna After Dark: Where Arcades, Towers, and Shadows Tell the Story on Travel Marketing.