The Addizione Erculea or Erculean Addition is the area of urban expansion created in 1492 by the enlargement of the walled city limits of

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, Italy. It is celebrated as an example of Renaissance urban planning. The walled medieval city of Ferrara was geographically limited from southward expansion by a branch of the delta of the

Po river The Po ( , ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy, starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is , or if the Maira (river), Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. The headwaters of the Po are forme ...

. In 1450, the prior Duke,

Borso d'Este image:Borso d'Este.jpg, Borso d'Este, attributed to Vicino da Ferrara, Pinacoteca of the Castello Sforzesco, Sforza Castle in Milan, Italy. Borso d'Este (1413 – 20 August 1471) was the first duke of Ferrara and duke of Modena, Modena, which he ...

(1450) had enlarged slightly the city southward with reclaimed land from the river banks. However, Ercole d'Este had suffered from attacks and sieges from Venice to the north and the Papal states to the South. In 1492, in order to accommodate the burgeoning city and create a more daunting city-fortress to withstand sieges, Ercole d'Este commissioned plans from the architect

Biagio Rossetti Biagio Rossetti ( 1447 – 1516) was an Italian architect and urbanist from Ferrara. A military engineer since 1483, and the ducal architect of Ercole I d'Este, in 1492 Rossetti was assigned Addizione Erculea, the project of enlarging the city of ...

for an urban expansion north of the city. The walls at this border coincided with the north flank of the

Castello Estense The ' ('House of Este, Este castle') or ' ('St. Michael's castle') is a moated medieval castle in the center of Ferrara, northern Italy. It consists of a large block with four corner towers. History On 3 May 1385, the Ferrarese people, driven ...

. These walls were razed and the moat, present Corso Giovecca, was filled in. Unlike the dense haphazard tracks of the medieval center, the Addizione created a main east-west road (analogous to a

Decumanus Maximus In Roman urban planning, a ''decumanus'' was an east–west-oriented road in a Roman city or '' castrum'' (military camp). The main ''decumanus'' of a particular city was the ''decumanus maximus'', or most often simply "the ''decumanus''". In t ...

) represented now by Corso Porta Po, Biagio Rosetti, and Porta Mare; and north-south street (analogous to a

Cardo Maximus A ''cardo'' (: ''cardines'') was a north–south street in ancient Roman cities and military camps as an integral component of city planning. The ''cardo maximus'', or most often the ''cardo'', was the main or central north–south-oriented str ...

) represented by the now Corso Ercole I d'Este parting from the Castello. The Addizione more than doubled the size of the walled town and included areas for cultivation and private parks (now encompassed by the Cemetery of the Certosa and the Jewish cemetery). Among the buildings erected over the next decades and centuries in this sector were the Palazzina di Marfisa d'Este, the church of Santa Chiara, Palazzo Roverella; the Palazzo Prosperi-Sacrati; the church of Teatini; the church of San Carlo, and the 17th century Teatro Comunale. The walls of Ferrara once spanned 13 kilometers, some 9 kilometers still stand, mainly to the north and east of the city. The Porta degli Angeli was an original Northern entrance to the Addizione Erculea.Ferrara Terra e Acqua
entry on walls of the city.

References

{{Coord, display=title Buildings and structures completed in 1492 Renaissance architecture in Ferrara Buildings and structures in Ferrara City walls in Italy Duchy of Ferrara History of Ferrara