semicircular and rest on round columns and capitals, richly carved
with grotesque figures and foliage. Most of the external ornamentation
is usually concentrated on the western front, which often has a
lofty arched porch on marble columns, resting on griffins or lions
devouring their prey. (ii.) The Florentine period (c. 1250 to 1400)
is represented by the church of S. Anastasia, and by many more or
less mutilated palaces, with fine courts surrounded by arcades in
one or more storeys. The arches are mostly pointed, and in other
respects the influence of northern Gothic was more direct in Verona
than in Florence. Solidity of mass and simplicity of detail are
among the characteristics of this period, (iii.) The Venetian period
(c. 1400–1480) was one of little originality or vigour, the buildings
of this date being largely rather dull copies of those at Venice.
(iv.) The early Renaissance developed into very exceptional beauty
in Verona, mainly through the genius of Fra Giocondo (1435–1514),
a native of Verona, who was at first a friar in the monastery of
S. Maria in Organo. He rose to great celebrity as an architect, and
designed many graceful and richly sculptured buildings in Venice,
Rome and even in France; he used classical forms with great taste
and skill, and with much of the freedom of the older medieval architects,
and was specially remarkable for his rich and delicate sculptured
decorations. Another of the leading architects of the next stage of the
Renaissance was the Veronese Michele Sanmichele (1484–1559), a great
military engineer, and designer of an immense number of magnificent
palaces in Verona and other cities of Venetia. His buildings are
stately and graceful in proportion, but show a tendency towards
dull scholastic classicism. The facades of his palaces were in the
lower storey only decorated by rustication, of which he made great
use, while the upper part was intended to be decorated with frescoes,
which (as we have said) have in most cases perished. To him are
also due the various gates and the most important bastions in the
walls of Verona. In consequence of the disastrous flood of 1882,
important embankment works were executed along the Adige at
a cost of £300,000. These works preclude all danger of future
inundation. In addition to the Adige embankment, other hydraulic
works have been either completed or undertaken. An irrigation
canal, deriving water from the Sega, furnishes 1112 cubic metres
per second to the fields of the upper Veronese district. The
Camuzzoni industrial canal, which runs from the Chievo di
S. Massimo to the suburb of Tombetta, furnishes 26 cubic metres
of water per second, and generates 4000 horse-power. The cutting
of this canal led to the construction of an aqueduct for drinking
water, which, besides supplying the city, furnishes an ice factory
with enough water to make 200 quintals of ice per day. The motive-power
generated by the Camuzzoni canal is utilized by a large nail
factory, flour mills, paper mills, cotton mills and works for the
distribution of electric energy.
The Adige embankment gave an impetus to building enterprise, the banks of the river being now flanked by villas and large dwelling-houses.
History.—The ancient Verona was a town of the Cenomani, a Gaulish tribe, whose chief town was Brixia. It became a Latin colony in 89 B.C. and, acquiring citizenship with the rest of Gallis Transpadana in 49 B.C., became a municipium. Tacitus wrongly speaks of it as a colony; but it appears to have received a new colony under Gallienus. In the time of Augustus it was inferior to Patavium in importance, but on a par with Mediolanum, and superior to Brixia and other towns of the district. Inscriptions testify to its importance—among others one which indicates that it was the headquarters of the collectors of the 5% inheritance tax under the Empire in Italy beyond the Po. Its territory stretched as far as Hostilia on the Padus (Po), 30 m. to the south, and was extensive on other sides also, though its exact limits are uncertain. It was an important point in the road system of the district, lying on that between Mediolanum and Aquileia, while here diverged to the north the roads up the Athesis valley and over the Brenner into Raetia, and to the south roads ran to Betriacum, Mantua and Hostilia. It was the birthplace of the poet Catullus. In A.D. 69 it became the headquarters of the legions which were siding with Vespasian. Its fertile surroundings, its central position at the junction of several great roads, and the natural strength of its position, defended by a river along two-thirds of its circumference, all combined to make Verona one of the richest and most important cities in northern Italy, although its extent within the walls was not large. The existing remains of walls and gates date from the period between the 3rd of April and the 4th of December of the year 265. A very handsome triumphal arch, now called the Porta de’ Borsari, was restored in this year by Gallienus (as the inscription upon it, which has taken the place of an older one, cancelled to make room for it, records), and became one of the city gates. It is a double arch, and above it are two orders of smaller arcades. The same was the case with the Porta dei Leoni, another rather similar triumphal arch on the east of the city, and with a third arch, the Arco dei Gavi, demolished in 1805. This last seems to have belonged to the 1st century A.D.; remains of it are preserved in the amphitheatre. It took its name from the family in whose honour it was erected; the architect was one L. Vitruvius Cerdo, possibly a pupil and freedman of the famous writer on architecture. The Porta dei Leoni, on the other hand, bears the name of Tiberius Flavius Noricus, a quattuorvir iure dicundo, i.e. one of the four chief magistrates of the city (probably 2nd century A.D.). The original line of walls did not include the amphitheatre, but passed N.E. of it; it was, however, afterwards included in the enceinte as a kind of massive corner tower.[1] The emperor Constantine, while advancing towards Rome from Gaul, besieged and took Verona (312); it was here, too, that Odoacer was defeated (499) by Theodoric the Goth, Dietrich von Bern—i.e. Verona—of German legends, who built a castle at Verona and frequently resided there. He enlarged the fortified area by constructing a wall and ditch (now called Adigetto) straight across the loop, to the S.W. of the amphitheatre, and also built thermae and restored the aqueducts, which had long been out of use.
In the middle ages Verona gradually grew in size and importance. Alboin, the Lombard king, captured it in 568, and it was one of the chief residences of the Lombard, and later of the Frankish, monarchs; and though, like other cities of northern Italy, it suffered much during the Guelph and Ghibelline struggles, it rose to a foremost position both from the political and the artistic point of view under its various rulers of the Scaliger or Delia Scala family. The first prominent member of this family and founder of his dynasty was Mastino I. della Scala, who ruled over the city from 1260 till his death in 1277. Verona had previously fallen under the power of a less able despot, Ezzelino da Romano, who died in 1259. Alberto della Scala (died in 1301) was succeeded by his eldest son Bartolomeo, who was confirmed as ruler of Verona by the popular vote, and died in 1304. It was in his time that Romeo and Juliet are said to have lived. Alboino, the second son, succeeded his brother, and died in 1311, when the youngest son of Alberto, Can Grande, who since 1308 had been joint-lord of Verona with his brother, succeeded to the undivided power. Can Grande (Francesco della Scala, d. 1329) was the best and most illustrious of his line, and is specially famous as the hospitable patron of Dante (q.v.). Other princes of this dynasty, which lasted for rather more than a century, were Giovanni (d. 1350), Mastino II. (d. 1351), Can Grande II. (d. 1359) and Can Signorio (d. 1375). In 1389 Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, became by conquest lord of Verona. Soon after his death the city fell by treacherous means into the hands of Francesco II. di Carrara, lord of Padua. In 1404–1405 Verona, together with Padua, was finally conquered by Venice, and remained subject to the Venetians till the overthrow of the republic by Napoleon in 1797, who in the same year, after the treaty of Campo Formio, ceded it to the Austrians with the rest of Venetia. They fortified it strongly in 1814, and with Peschiera, Mantua and Legnago it formed part of the famous quadrilateral which until 1866 was the chief support of their rule in Italy.
See the various works by Scipione Maffei (Verona Illustrata, 1728; Museum Veronense, 1749); and Th. Mommsen in Corp. Inscr. Latin (Berlin, 1883), v. p. 327 (with bibliography); A. Wiel, The Story of Verona (London, 1902); Notizie degli scavi, passim; E. Giani, L’Antico teatro di Verona (Verona, 1908). (J. H. M.; T. As.)
VERONA, CONGRESS OF, the last of the series of international conferences or congresses based on the principle enunciated in Art. 6 of the treaty of Paris of November 20th, 1805 (see Europe, History). It met at Verona on the 20th
- ↑ The view of some scholars is that the original walls were earlier than the time of Gallienus, who reconstructed them on the old lines, taking in, however, the amphitheatre.
