The influence of Renaissance heritage on tourism of Northern Italy: Ferrara and Milan

Abstract

In their turbulent history cities of Northern Italy experienced one of the most significant changes during the Renaissance period. The development of urbanism and the transformation of architectural style in the 15th and 16th centuries laid the foundations of modern cities of the Padua Valley. Construction and architecture were a visible manifestation of the power so the families of Northern Italy, Visconti and Sforza in Milan and Este in Ferrara, become patrons to many Renaissance artists wanting to show their supremacy over other city-states in humanistic manner. This paper first aimed to define relation between renaissance architectural and urban transformation with now days tourism offer of two cities. While today the renaissance core of Milan is only a small segment of modern Mega polis, Ferrara has not experienced significant changes in the spatial organization of urban area. Nevertheless, both cities base their tourist offer on castles, palaces, and other buildings from the renaissance period. This paper is trying to show just how the renaissance in urbanism and architecture had far-reaching effects on the modern tourism of these two centers of humanistic culture. To create clearer insight on the influence of Renaissance heritage we used descriptive and comparative method, showcasing two Northern Italy tourist sites, Milan and Ferrara that have a similar past but different trends in contemporary tourism.