Via Emilia (Modena)

The Via Emilia, Modena’s modest but refined main street, roughly follows the line of the Roman original. Coming from the east, it enters the centro storico at Largo Garibaldi/Largo Porta Bologna, passing the Teatro Storchi, Modena's impressive home for drama, and then the church of San Biagio.

Like Bologna, Modena is a city of porticos. The next landmark, on the south side of Via Emilia, is the gracefully curving Portico del Collegio di San Carlo, built in the late 17th century. After that comes Piazza Mazzini, the site of the Jewish ghetto, instituted by Francesco I in 1638 in a quarter where Jews had already lived since at least the 11th century. After Italian unification ghettos like this one were closed all over the nation. The shabbiest and most densely packed part was demolished and made into this square, and a big new synagogue was built on one side in 1873.