Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta
Ferrara, which grew up around a ford over the River
Po, became an intellectual and artistic centre that attracted the
greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th and 16th
centuries. Here, Piero della Francesca, Jacopo Bellini and Andrea
Mantegna decorated the palaces of the House of Este. The humanist
concept of the 'ideal city' came to life here in the neighbourhoods
built from 1492 onwards by Biagio Rossetti according to the new
principles of perspective. The completion of this project marked the
birth of modern town planning and influenced its subsequent development.