Vigevano

Vigevano is an ancient town in the province of Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy, which possesses many artistic treasures and runs a huge industrial business. It is at the center of a district called Lomellina, a great rice-growing agricultural centre. Vigevano hosts a Duomo, a tower by Bramante, the Castello Sforzesco, and the world-famous shoe-museum, dedicated to the town's major activity, which is in fact the industrial production of fashionable shoes.

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Vigevano is crowned by the Castello Sforzesco, a stronghold rebuilt 1492-4 for Ludovico Maria Sforza ('Lodovico il Moro'), the great patron born in the town, who transformed the fortification of the Visconti into a rich noble residence, at the cusp of Gothic and Renaissance. Leonardo was his guest at Vigevano. Bramante came to work for him. The old castle has a unique raised covered road, high enough for horsemen to ride through, that communicates between the new palace and the old fortifications; there is a Falconry and the Ladies' Loggia made for Beatrice d'Este.

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Vigevano also has one of the finest piazzas in Italy, an elongated rectangle that is almost in the ideal proportions 1:2 advocated by the architectural theorist Antonio Filarete, which is also said to have been laid out by Bramante, and was certainly built for Lodovico il Moro, starting in 1492/3 and completed in record time, unusual for early Renaissance town planning; the Piazza del Duomo was actually planned to form a noble forecourt to his castle, unified by the arcades that completely surround the square, an amenity of the new North Italian towns built in the 13th century. The town's main street enters through a sham arcaded facade that preserves the unity of the space as at the Place des Vosges. It is significant that Lodovico demolished the former palazzo of the commune of Vigevano to create the space. The opposite end was enclosed in the 17th century by the concave Baroque facade of the cathedral, cleverly adjusted to bring the ancient duomo into a line perpendicular to the axis of the piazza and centered on it. In a gesture that combined architecture and politics, the bishop removed Sforza's rampway that led to the castello's forecourt.

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The town is the birthplace of Gian Carlo Rota.

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Pavia: :For the municipality in the Philippines, see Pavia, Iloilo....

Lombardy: Lombardy (in Italian Lombardia) is a region in northern Italy between the Alps and the Po Valley. Lombardy borders the regions of Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, and the country of Switzerland. Lombardy's capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy, and...

Italy: Italy (Italian: Repubblica Italiana or Italia) is a country in southern Europe. It comprises a boot-shaped peninsula and two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia, and shares its northern alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The independent countries...