Those Crazy Popes!

There are two well-known landmarks in Bologna and both of them are in Piazza Maggiore in the center of town. One of them is Basilica di San Petronio, the 10th largest church in the world.

So the story goes something like this. Construction started on the church in the 1300s and continued for several centuries. In the 1500s the plan was revised to make the church even larger than Saint Peters in Rome. That's when Pope Pius IV said "Whoa there, Nelly!" So construction stopped, and that is why you see the bottom part of the facade is this beautiful marble exterior, and the top is brown brick.

The other landmark in the Piazza is the fountain of Neptune. I can't show you a picture that we took because it is currently being restored and is surrounded by scaffolding.

According to legend, while the statue was in progress in the 1500s, the current Pope objected to the size of Neptune's genitals and ordered the sculptor, Giambologna, to make them less prominent. The sculptor was unhappy but made the change. But to retaliate, he changed the position of Neptune's left arm so that the thumb and finger are outstretched. So supposedly if you stand behind the statue on a sunny day, the arm makes a long phallic shadow. Unfortunately, even though we have had many sunny days, I can not prove this to be true.