ABSTRACT
The Po, the only Italian river navigable for the majority of its course, has enabled the development of many important urban settlements along its banks between the medieval and modern periods, determining their forms and conditioning their function. This chapter examines the way in which Ferrara was architecturally and urbanistically structured along the river during the Renaissance, when the entire city front facing the Po was the focus of numerous urban interventions aimed at creating a magnificent backdrop for those who reached the city by water. Obscured by the scholarly insistence on the so-called ‘Herculean Addition’, the Ferrarese riverfront along the Po should be recognised as an area of particular importance for the Este princes, who paid great attention to the delicate relationship between the river and the architecture along its banks. In order to explore this predilection of the Estes, this chapter also looks at a grandiose project undertaken by the last Duke, Alfonso II (1533-1597), for a seigniorial settlement at the very end of the Po delta, on the island of Mesola.
