By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2010-09-16 08:18:17 | Word Count: 535
Spending some days in one of the hotels in the centre of Verona, is a perfect way to dive into its history and know its legends: some stories already made the tour of the world, like the one of Romeo and Juliet, and others that the people of the city gladly tell to the tourists, curious to get to know the city they are visiting.
Both in the centre and in the nearby periphery you can hear interesting stories: staying in a hotel in San Michele Extra, for example, you will be able to hear the story of the Montorio Castle, which is said to hide a book of command, while in the hotels in the centre of Verona you will hear stories about the arena and other historical places.
The books of command were said to be very common in the past times, but the story goes that they have been destroyed along the centuries by the priests, who burned them: the story goes that they were full of magic formulas, and possessing them you would have been able to command the elements, fly, find treasures...it would have been like getting some superpowers. One of the last book of command which have survived to the fires, then, would be in the surgeons of the castle; the surgeons, though, would also hide a passage which would bring to the arena in the city centre: the hidden passage would be some kilometres long, and its entrances are unknown as well as its constructor.
The legends of the city centre, of course, aim to the majestic arena, telling that it would have been built in only one night: the people of Verona, in fact, desired an arena in their city, and a man condemned to death, in his last night, receive a visit of the devil, who proposed to build an arena that night in change of his soul. This would have saved his life, and the man accepted: but as soon as he saw the demos working he repented, and spent the night praying Our Lady to save his soul. Some minutes before the dawn Our Lady, feeling a sincere repentance, satisfied the man’s prayer and made the bells ring the Angelus melody: the demos ran away at that sound, even though they still hadn’t finished their work. Hence, the arena remained incomplete, so that the devil could not have the soul of the man, but the work done was already enough to save his life.
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Then, there’s the enormous rib hang from an arch in Piazza delle Erbe, and no one knows whose rib it is: maybe a pre-historical animal? Last only because everybody already knows the story, there’s the legend of Romeo and Juliet, which tells the story of the unlucky love of the young children of two rival families, who died for their love: the story gets confounded between history and legend, handing down stories and still showing the places in which the most renowned love story in the world would have happened.
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This article was written by Lia Contesso, with support from camera verona.
