On Christmas Day a year ago, Eugenio Riccomini, professor and art historian, one of the most effective art popularizers that Bologna has ever had, passed away. In 2013 he published a very handy little square book which contained a few itineraries under the porticoes, illustrated with photographs by Giampaolo Zaniboni.
His prose, at times poetic and dreamy, glosses the beautiful images, where the warm hues of the terracotta and the ochre of the plaster prevail.
The art of not revealing oneself too much is the title of the writing that runs throughout the volume and which tells of the porticoes as seen by Eugenio Riccomini.
It is too tempting to read the typical architecture of Bologna as responsible for the 'character' of the Bolognese people or, vice versa, to highlight how only the Bolognese could have come up with an architectural invention like the portico. The usual chicken and egg dilemma. In Riccomini's writing, however, these arguments become more witty and it is worth following them for a short while:
There will also be some connection, one imagines, between our age-old habit of always moving around covered, protected and defended from the elements, and the very Bolognese habit of never revealing ourselves too much, of moderating opinions, of being suspicious and distrustful of every radical affirmation; always giving an unspoken but ultimately convinced preference for that virtue that Guido Bacchelli had so well identified in the Bolognese custom, to which he had given the name of mediocrity: the art, that is, of not taking part too openly, even to avoid possible future damage, possible denials of history.
And again, gleaning here and there: if the arches or the capitals are usually striking, Riccomini focuses our gaze on the floor:
You never notice them, except when you come across two or three steps [...] But even the floors, at times, can capture attention. We are on the street, outside the house; but the portico has always been considered as an extension of an interior. And in fact the porticoes are not paved with tarmac, nor with porphyry cubes or pebbles; instead they are the older ones, paved with bricks, or more often covered with a beautiful terrazzo floor, [...], perhaps with some decorative frames, which sometimes bear the date of execution, mostly nineteenth century.
And even when you look ahead there is no risk of monotony, Riccomini says:
every connecting route between the main roads is curved, more or less marked; and even the main roads, traced in the Middle Ages, are never perfectly straight. And so it never happens, as one walhs, to glimpse the end of a portico as in an exact Renaissance perspective or in a geometry book. Everything is always seen and perceived in foreshortening, in varied flight; just as, proceeding, it is never possible to grasp in a glance the architecture of the building that passes at one’s side, because the entire view is precluded by the rhythm of the columns, of the pillars, and what you see is all slanted...
Many other points of view are offered by Riccomini's reading of porticoes, whom we gratefully recommend for his long and fruitful activity.
Sources
I portici di Bologna di Eugenio Riccomini, foto di Giampaolo Zaniboni, Bologna, L'inchiostro blu-Pendragon, 2013.