This monastery stands on an island: polesine means land emerging between the branches of a river, and a branch of the Po ran here. It was founded in the early middle ages by Augustinians and in 1297 passed to Benedictine nuns led by Beatrice d'Este, the marquis's daughter: from then on the nuns have always been here, and they still are, in enclosure.
What to see
You enter the outer church, the one reserved for visitors, and from there you reach three chapels covered in fourteenth-century frescoes, the work of painters of the Giottesque and Bolognese schools: they are among the most important cycles in Ferrara and they stand in a space no bigger than a room. There is little light, the colours are still bright, and the figures are seen from very close.
In the church is the tomb of the founder, around which a local tradition has grown: drops of water are said to form on the stone, and they are held to be miraculous. The complex was restored at the beginning of the nineteenth century at the initiative of a city association, and since then it has remained what it was.
Visiting
The monastery is in via Gambone, in the southern part of the old centre, fifteen minutes on foot from the castle; you ring the bell, entry is by offering and the hours are short and tied to the community's life: outside them you do not get in. Half an hour.
Our editors' tip
Try to arrive at the hour of the office: from behind the grille you hear the nuns singing, without seeing them. It is the very condition of enclosure, and it is the one thing here that cannot be photographed. Afterwards the frescoes look different: they are not a museum, they are the decoration of a house where somebody has lived for eight centuries.