Portico di San Luca
Brick colonnade of six hundred sixty-six arches climbing nearly four kilometers to a hilltop sanctuary.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Portico di San Luca in Bologna opens in the flooded spring of 1433, when the city carried a small Byzantine Madonna icon down from its hilltop chapel in a desperate bid to end the rain, a procession still repeated every spring before Ascension. It follows why the city later decided pilgrims needed shelter on that climb, and traces the decades-long construction, starting in 1674, of the brick corridor that still covers the route today. Along the way it takes up the families who funded and signed sections of the arcade, and the meaning some read into its arch count. Walk it slowly and notice the names still carved overhead.
This audio guide was created using AI.