Ferrara

Ferrara, capital of an Italian province, stands in the marshy delta of the Po, 30 miles from the Adriatic, and 29 NE. of Bologna by rail. A walled city since 604, it is still fortified with walls, bastions, ditches, and a citadel. The old castle or ducal palace of the Estes, built in the Gothic style in the 14th and 15th centuries, with corner towers, moats, and heavy machicolations, is the most conspicuous secular building in Ferrara. After the extinction of the Este family it was until 1860 the residence of the papal legates. The most notable churches are the cathedral and those of San Francesco, San Benedetto, and Santa Maria in Vado, which contain paintings by native artists (Garofalo, Dosso Dossi, &c.) and others (Guercino, Seb. Filippi). The university, founded in 1264, reorganised in 1402, closed in 1794, and reopened in 1824, has three faculties (medicine, jurisprudence, mathematics), nineteen professors, and less than forty students. Its excellent library (100,000 vols., rare incunabula, and 1000 MSS.) contains original works of Tasso, Ariosto, and Guarini. Ferrara is specially remarkable for its art associations. Under the patronage of the Dukes of Este it produced a good school of painters; in literature it is closely associated with Tasso, Ariosto, and Guarini, who, as well as Savonarola, was born at Ferrara. At the period of its greatest prosperity Ferrara had about 100,000 inhabitants; now, however, it presents a decayed appearance, and in 1881 had only 30,695 inhabitants. After passing through various vicissitudes Ferrara became subject to the house of Este about the close of the 12th century, and remained in their hands until the extinction of the family in 1598, when it passed to Pope Clement VIII. In 1860 Ferrara was incorporated in the kingdom of Italy.