The longest portico in the world
On the top of the Colle della Guardia, about 300 metres high, south west of Bologna, the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca is the most beloved symbol of the city: seeing its pink dome on the green hill means, for every Bolognese, that you are home. The sanctuary houses a Byzantine-style icon of the Virgin with Child, which according to tradition was painted by Saint Luke the Evangelist and was brought from Constantinople by a pilgrim in the twelfth century. The present basilica, with its elliptical plan and large dome, was built in the eighteenth century to a design by Carlo Francesco Dotti.
The sanctuary is linked to the city by the portico of San Luca, the longest portico in the world: built between 1674 and 1721 with the contributions of the whole population, it runs for about 3.8 kilometres from the Porta Saragozza and has 666 arches, a number that, according to some, symbolises the devil, the serpent crushed by the Virgin. The first part is flat, then, from the Arco del Meloncello, a scenic baroque arch, it climbs steeply up the hill with steps and ramps, with fifteen chapels of the Mysteries of the Rosary along the way. Every year, in the week before Ascension, the icon is carried in procession down to the cathedral, as has happened since 1433, and then returned to the hill.
Tip: walk up the portico in the morning, it takes about an hour; you can return by the San Luca Express, the tourist train from Piazza Maggiore.
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