Ferrara Self-Guided Walking Tour Renaissance City, Audio and Quiz

The straight central axis of the 1492 Addizione Erculea, laid out by court architect Biagio Rossetti. You walk south along a shop-free residential avenue that runs from the Porta degli Angeli ramparts to the Castello Estense.

The oldest palace of the 1492 expansion, built for court physician Francesco da Castello. Its plain brick wall throws all the emphasis onto a white marble Renaissance doorway with sculpted putti holding up the balcony.

Biagio Rossetti's 1493-1503 palace for Sigismondo d'Este, faced with about 8,500 marble pyramids cut at varying angles so the corner reads best to someone walking past. See the carved candelabra at the intersection.

A moated brick fortress begun in 1385 after a tax revolt, designed by Bartolino da Novara to face inward at the city. Later dukes softened it with loggias, marble balustrades and an orange-tree terrace.

Ferrara-born friar Girolamo Savonarola, its base carved as a stack of logs. The arcaded Via Coperta links the ducal palace to the castle here.

The courtyard of the old Palazzo Ducale, reached through the Volto del Cavallo archway. It holds the Scalone d'Onore staircase of 1473-81 and bronze replicas of Niccolo III and Borso d'Este, recast in 1927.

The Basilica Cattedrale di San Giorgio Martire, begun in 1135 by the sculptor Nicholaus. A Romanesque marble lower level gives way to Gothic pinnacles, with a tympanum of the weighing of souls and a shopping loggia built into the south wall.

Ferrara's main square, laid out over a twelfth-century herb market and crossed by the raised stone Listone promenade. The truncated cathedral bell tower stands at one corner, and the 1173 communal statutes are built into the arcade wall.

The streets around Via Mazzini and Via Vignatagliata, sealed behind five gates from 1627 until 1859 under Papal rule. The Jewish community's headquarters at Via Mazzini 95 has stood on the same site since 1485.

A medieval river-port street where thirteenth and fourteenth-century brick vaults still span the alley, once linking merchant houses to their warehouses opposite. Today it is lined with wine bars under the arches.