When the Earth Moved in Ferrara

Walking down the tranquil streets of Ferrara, only a thirty-minute train ride from Bologna, one can easily forget the pictures beamed onto our television screens seven years ago in the aftermath of the earthquakes in the Emilia-Romagna region.

The city of Ferrara is flat, bicycles are numerous and many of the streets car-free. On a sunny April Saturday, the mood was relaxed and carefree.

Thinking we would make the Cathedral our first stop, we were surprised to discover it closed. It seems that restorative work following the 2012 quake has now reached a crucial stage, and the space inside is unavailable to worshippers and visitors until September this year.

We next visited Castello Estense, a moated medieval castle built by the Este family, the same family that owned Villa d’Este outside Rome, which we visited in September.

One striking feature of the castle are its many beautiful ceilings, despite what looks like masking tape crisscrossing them.

Of course, this is not masking tape, but ‘washi’ paper and is part of the restoration work following the earthquake. However, I could find no explanation as to what this process entails.

Two quakes, measuring 6.1 and 5.8 on the Richter scale occurred just nine days apart in May 2012. In Ferrara alone seven people died, five thousand people were made homeless and hundreds of structures of historical significance were damaged or destroyed. Approximately 300,000 wheels of Grana Padana and Parmigiana Reggiano cheeses, with an estimated value of €200 million, were destroyed.

The region is not one where seismic events on this scale are expected, the last occasion the earth shook with similar force being back in 1570 (a result of which was a change of course for the River Po).

On display at the Castello Estense are eye-witness accounts of the 1570 quake. Apparently the seism prompted the design of the first buildings to withstand earthquakes.