Rovigo Capital

Rovigo is called the city of roses because of a learned mistake: scholars derived its name from the Greek rhodon, the rose, and Ariosto played on it in Orlando Furioso, calling it the land whose roses gave it a pleasant name. In fact the place name almost certainly comes from a Germanic personal name, Hrodico, and first appears in a document of 838 as Rodigo, a rural village. It belonged to the Este for nearly three centuries and then to Venice for three more, which took it in 1482 at the end of the Salt War.

Between the Adige and the Po, Rovigo is the capital of the Polesine: a land of water and land reclamation, flat as a table — it lies between five and eight metres above the sea — and therefore perfect for cycling. It had a river inside it too, the Adigetto, which split the town in two: it was covered over in 1937. The two surviving medieval towers — the Donà, sixty-six metres, among the tallest in Italy — and the drawing-room squares of Vittorio Emanuele and Garibaldi make up a compact centre; the Tempio della Rotonda, raised by the Venetians to celebrate their rule, has its walls covered with portraits of the governors. Palazzo Roverella has made the city a venue for major exhibitions. To the south the Po Delta — a UNESCO biosphere reserve — opens out into lagoons, fishing valleys and skies full of birds.