Top Historic Sights in Verona, Italy
Explore the historic highlights of Verona
Verona Amphitheatre
The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheatre built in 1st century. It is still in use today and is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. In ancient times, nearly 30,000 people was the housing capacity of the Arena. The building itself was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. The round façade o ...Scaliger Tombs
The Scaliger Tombs is a group of five Gothic funerary monuments in Verona, celebrating the Scaliger family, who ruled in Verona from the 13th to the late 14th century. The tombs are located in a court of the church of Santa Maria Antica, separated from the street by a wall with iron grilles. Built in Gothic style, they are a series of tombs, most of which are in the shape of a small temple and covered by a baldachin. Acc ...Castelvecchio
Castelvecchio ('Old Castle') is the most important military construction of the Scaliger dynasty that ruled the city in the Middle Ages. The castle stands on the probable location of a Roman fortress outside the Roman city. Lord Cangrande II della Scala had it built along with its bridge across the Adige River as a deterrent to his powerful neighbors such as Venice, the Gonzaga and the Sforza families. Construction was ca ...Roman Theatre
The Roman theatre of Verona should not to be confused with the Roman amphitheatre known as the Verona Arena. The theatre was built in the late 1st century BC. Before its construction, two walls were built alongside the Adige River, between the Ponte di Pietra and the Ponte Postumio, to protect it against floods. Today only remains of the edifice are visible, recovered starting from around 1830. They include the cavea and ...Ponte Pietra
The Ponte Pietra (Italian for 'Stone Bridge'), is a Roman arch bridge crossing the Adige River in Verona. The bridge was completed in 100 BC, and the Via Postumia from Genoa to Aquileia passed over it. It is the oldest bridge in Verona. It originally flanked another Roman bridge, the Pons Postumius; both structures provided the city (on the right bank) with access to the Roman theatre on the east bank. The arch nearest t ...Sant Anastasia Church
Sant"Anastasia church building started in 1280 and completed in 1400, designed by the Dominican friars. It took its name from a pre-existing temple built by King Theoderic the Great upon which was built the actual church. Since 1307, it is in fact co-entitled to St. Peter of Verona, martyr and co-patron of the city. Consecrated only in 1471, until 1808 the church was held by the Dominicans. The 72 mt tall belltower ...Verona Cathedral
Verona Cathedral was erected after two Palaeo-Christian churches on the same site had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1117. Built in Romanesque style, the cathedral was consecrated on September 13, 1187. The structure was later modified by several renovation interventions, although the plan has remained unchanged. The façade is divided into three parts, with a pediment and a two storied projecting porch or prot ...San Pietro Castle
Verona was founded to the site of current Castel San Pietro. This green hill, crowned by cypresses, is home to the remains of the first settlements dating back to the 7th century B.C. From this magnificent vantage-point you can enjoy the view of the whole city spreading out, with its network of Roman Roads, its walls, tall towers and steeples and, if your eyesight is good, you can even make out part of the Arena and the P ...Basilica of San Zeno
The Basilica di San Zeno name rests partly on its architecture and partly upon the tradition that its crypt was the place of the marriage of Shakespeare"s Romeo and Juliet. It stands adjacent to a Benedictine abbey, both dedicated to St Zeno of Verona. St. Zeno died in 380. According to legend, at a site above his tomb along the Via Gallica, the first small church was erected by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostr ...Santi Apostoli Church
Santi Apostoli, with the adjacent Romanesque chapel of the Sante Teuteria e Tosca, is an ancient Roman Catholic church in front of a piazza off Corso Cavour. A church at this site of the Chiesetta was consecrated in 751 on an earlier fifth-century structure, but reconstructed in the 12th-century. Reconstruction of this and Santi Apostoli were pursued across the centuries including major ones in the 18th and 20th-centuries ...Sant'Eufemia Church
The church of Sant"Eufemia is an ancient church in Verona. A church at the site was likely present by the 11th or 12th centuries, although the main layout we see today was completed only in the 14th century. In the interior, altarpieces were completed by Brusasorci and Giovanni Domenico Cignaroli. In the 14th century Spolverini chapel, there is a canvas and frescos by Giovanni Francesco Caroto. The gothic belltower c ...San Fermo Maggiore Church
San Fermo Maggiore is a medieval Romanesque church. A church at this site may has been traced to the 8th century, and by the 11th century a second story and belltower was added by the Benedictine order. The campanile was not completed until the 13th century, it contains six bells in F cast in 1755 and rung with the Veronese bellringing art. The exterior has a roofline with pinnacles, and the church once held the tomb of a ...San Giorgio in Braida
San Giorgio in Braida church was built in the 16th century in the medieval quarter of Veronetta. The 12th-century bell tower is what remains of a monastery built in the 11th century. The facade is marble white with two rows of pillars. The statues of St. George and St. Lorenzo Giustiniani are on sides. The interior has a single nave built between 1536 and 1543, and contains key works of art. Above the main door is a Tinto ...Montorio Castle Ruins
Montorio Castle was presumably a look-out post which was once part of the Verona city fortifications and which is first mentioned in documents dating back to 995 AD. It was subsequently rebuilt by the Aldobrandeschi in the Middle Ages and restructured by the Ottieri and then transformed into a fortified farmhouse after the annexation of the county in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Only certain sections of the structure remai ...San Bernardino
San Bernardino was built in Gothic style from 1451 to 1466. The church"s origin are connected to the presence of San Bernardino in the city from 1422, during which he founded a convent of nuns for the order of the Minor Friars and, later, another one for monks. He was canonized in 1450, six years after his death, and in 1451 his successor Giovanni da Capestrano started the construction of a large complex for the orde ...Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Historic Site of the week
Angelokastro
Angelokastro is a Byzantine castle on the island of Corfu. It is located at the top of the highest peak of the island"s shoreline in the northwest coast near Palaiokastritsa and built on particularly precipitous and rocky terrain. It stands 305 m on a steep cliff above the sea and surveys the City of Corfu and the mountains of mainland Greece to the southeast and a wide area of Corfu toward the northeast and northwest.
Angelokastro is one of the most important fortified complexes of Corfu. It was an acropolis which surveyed the region all the way to the southern Adriatic and presented a formidable strategic vantage point to the occupant of the castle.
Angelokastro formed a defensive triangle with the castles of Gardiki and Kassiopi, which covered Corfu"s defences to the south, northwest and northeast.
The castle never fell, despite frequent sieges and attempts at conquering it through the centuries, and played a decisive role in defending the island against pirate incursions and during three sieges of Corfu by the Ottomans, significantly contributing to their defeat.
During invasions it helped shelter the local peasant population. The villagers also fought against the invaders playing an active role in the defence of the castle.
The exact period of the building of the castle is not known, but it has often been attributed to the reigns of Michael I Komnenos and his son Michael II Komnenos. The first documentary evidence for the fortress dates to 1272, when Giordano di San Felice took possession of it for Charles of Anjou, who had seized Corfu from Manfred, King of Sicily in 1267.
From 1387 to the end of the 16th century, Angelokastro was the official capital of Corfu and the seat of the Provveditore Generale del Levante, governor of the Ionian islands and commander of the Venetian fleet, which was stationed in Corfu.
The governor of the castle (the castellan) was normally appointed by the City council of Corfu and was chosen amongst the noblemen of the island.
Angelokastro is considered one of the most imposing architectural remains in the Ionian Islands.