Italy 3/4

Bologna is home to the oldest operating university in Europe founded in 1088. Past students include Dante and Petrarch. One of the buildings can be found in the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, location of the famed anatomical theater that I had been itching to see since that class I took freshman year. The building is covered in crests of alumni. Elizabeth and I were absolutely giddy looking at all of them. As we stared at the ceiling giggling to ourselves, one of the Italian guides approached us. Although we couldn't understand anything he said, we followed him to a room that he unlocked just for us. This room was huge (I'm not good with numbers, and now that I'm trying to learn the metric system, I can't really describe things in terms of feet anymore either). The walls were once again covered with crests and thousands of books. The guide showed us a tile explaining that this room was created in commemoration of the opening of one of Rossini's operas. Or something like that. Then, the guide opened up another magical door. This time, we were not allowed in, but we got to take a peak at this never-ending hall with fullystocked ancient bookshelves and, again, the crests that lined the walls. Next, it was finally time to see that anatomical theater. Most of it was destroyed during an air raid in WWII, but it has been completely restored. The walls display stautes of Galen, Hippocrates, and other important figures in medicine. I tried my best to creep out Elizabeth with what I have learned about public dissections back in the day, and I think I succeeded.

Despite all of the sights in Bologna I have hertofore described, Bologna is most well known for its food, and Elizabeth and I could not bring ourselbes to ignore this. After a long but delightful day Friday, we headed out to a local pizzeria, where I had pretty much the best pizza I have ever had in my life ( sorry, Bazbeaux, I'm still a loyal customer, but you are no match to Jari's in Bologna). We conquered two pizzas, one with sautéed eggplant and ricotta, and the other with artichokes (these did not taste like they came out of a can or jar opened up in the middle of nowere, Indiana), wild mushrooms, and ham. Yum. I'm drooling on my computer. Saturday, we started the day off right with pistachio canolis for breakfast from a Sicilian stand at a market. For lunch, we headed out to Scalinatella, a restaurant recommended by Lindsay, a friend of mine who I met in that favorite class of mine and who studied in Bologna all of last year. The pasta was sublime. I got the special with mussels, clams, octopus, and broccoli. The parsley that topped it off was so fresh it tasted like it was still growing on the plant. Of course, we could not bear to leave without having had some real Italian gelato. Elizabeth got two different kinds, one was banana, and the other remains a delicious mystery to us both, although we did discern that it contained chunks of nutella. My flavor was also a bit of a mystery, except I was able to identify that it contained chunks of nougat. Before we left, we also made time to buy goodies for home--tortellini (Bologna is tha birthplace of both tortellini and Bolognese sauce), a mixture of olives and sun-dried tomatoes , and marzipan in the shape of shrimp and squid.

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Basilica of San Domenico

Back of San Petronius (not a great pic, but look at the height of the passersby to get an idea of the size of this place. . .)

The hall that the Italian guide showed to us

Inside the anatomical theater. Here, a professor would read the text of Galen out loud while the anatomist would dissect.

Outside the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, where the library and anatomical theater are