Porto San Pancrazio

An ancient village on the left side of the Adige River, Porto San Pancrazio’s development is linked to the events of the river. It has always governed the life and moods of the people of the Porto, ever since the first inhabitants lived off its resources (fishing, sand, gravel, motive power for the mills).
As its name indicates, the “Porto” was the docking and ferry point to the opposite shore, where a sort of steel wire raft connected the Porto to the Saltuclo area.

During the 19th century the village underwent profound transformations with the construction of the cemetery, the Milan-Venice railway line and the Porta Vescovo station.

Before the last war, Porto San Pancrazio looked like a farming community all stretched out on the edge of the moraine overlooking the Adige between rows of mulberry trees, peach trees and willows. People strolled along its shores during the day, in the sun, or in the evening when the moon shone. You could feel the coolness on summer evenings, the fearful overflow of its waters in floods. Hunters and fishermen came and went in constant activity, attentive to the steps of migratory birds and the colour of the water.

A hundred or so houses, homes of fishermen, hunters, sandmen and small craftsmen, a little over a thousand inhabitants, eight streets dedicated, except for two, to half a dozen free thinkers in the odour of heresy: Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Girolamo Savonarola, Galileo Galilei, Arnaldo da Brescia, Paolo Sarpi. An obvious legacy of the barricaded anticlericalism, but also a little romantic, that pervaded the socialist town councils at the turn of the century.

During the last war, the village was heavily bombed, and from the 1950s onwards it underwent reconstruction and subsequent development.

( “28 marzo 1944, Il Porto quel giorno”, Verona City Council, District 7, 1984; “Porto San Pancrazio, Storia di una comunità”, Cirillo Boscagin)

Buso del Gato

An unexpected secret place, known only to locals, the “Buso del Gato” is an underground walkway built by the Austrians under the railway in 1849 to connect the Porto San Pancrazio district to the Porta Vescovo station.

Adige South Park - Giarol Grande educational farm

A protected natural area of local interest that covers an area of over one million square metres on which a lowland forest has been created, a woodland that represents the typical forest formation of the lowland areas of the past. A beautiful cycle-pedestrian path that runs along the bend in the river allows you to reach Zevio, passing through the beautiful park and the Villa dei Buri.

Parco all'Adige, Villa Buri

An enchanting natural environment, the Adige Park represents an indispensable green lung near the city centre. It is crossed by the beautiful “Risorgive cycle-pedestrian path” which runs along the bend in the river and allows you to reach Borghetto di Valeggio sul Mincio, passing Villa Buri and its park, along a route of about 35 kilometres.

Lazzaretto (1549, Sanmicheli)

Its small Escurial structure tells of plagues and invasions. The only remedy for the terrible scourge of the plague was to isolate the plague victims. The small islands in the middle of the Adige River were very useful for this purpose, where plague survivors spent their quarantine time in order to ascertain whether they had fully recovered.

Lazzaretto, Verona

In the absence of such small islands, the plague victims were often gathered along the banks of the Adige, far from the town, which had to be reached by boat in order to avoid passing through the streets. This was probably the origin of the Lazzaretto, built towards the middle of the 16th century to provide plague victims with a decent environment.

Although historians are uncertain about the Lazzaretto’s authorship, almost everyone agrees in attributing the design of the central temple, which is the only thing left of the large complex, to Sanmicheli.