The Certosa Portico

Prior to the Saint-Cloud edict of 1804, the Certosa Cemetery was opened in Bologna outside the city walls in 1801. By necessity, it had to be connected to the city with a roofed passageway to allow the faithful to reach the cemetery in comfort. An early design attempted to create a connection between the cemetery complex and Porta Sant’Isaia, but distances and costs caused the enterprise to be discarded. On the other hand, the proposal by the architect Ercole Gasparini to connect the cemetery to the portico of San Luca, just before the Meloncello Arch, proved more interesting. Gasparini was already engaged in works in the cemetery. This design from 1811 stood out for its reasoned choice of route, making use of the pre-existing portico of San Luca, and for its rarified beauty, worthy of the purest neoclassicism. Among other things, Gasparini imagined that spaces under the arches of his portico could be used for funeral memento tombstones and chapels. If realised, it would be a unique example for cemeteries being built. The work site’s situation and the difficulty to raise funds however slowed down the building of the portico.
In 1818, the Guidi Arch was built (it no longer exists today) to cross the road coming from Porta Sant’Isaia. However, Gasparini died in 1829 and the project was completed with changes by Luigi Marchesini, chief engineer of the municipality. The final section of the portico to the Certosa crossed the Reno canal and was also built differently from the design that comprised a monumental arch. It was instead replaced with a more sober porticoed segment decorated with ionic columns.
In 1926, the continuity of the 19th century porticoes was interrupted when the monumental entrance to the Littoriale sports complex, the Maratona Tower, was erected. The cutting-edge sports complex commissioned by the Podestà Leandro Arpinati is made up of a stadium, sports grounds and two swimming pools. It was the work of the engineer Umberto Costanzini who collaborated with the architect Giulio Ulisse Arata on the tower design.