Pomposa, the Romanesque Bell Tower That Watches Over the Po Delta

There are places you don't visit: you listen to them. The abbey of Pomposa, in the flat countryside of the municipality of Codigoro, a handful of kilometres from the Adriatic, is one of these. Here the plain stretches out unobstructed and the only vertical that breaks the horizon is the Romanesque bell tower, rising isolated above the fields like a summons. You almost always arrive by chance, travelling along the Romea road, and you're surprised that a monument of such importance is so little visited.

The abbey and the bell tower

The origins of the monastery date back to the ninth century, though reliable sources are scarce: the first trustworthy record is from 874. Its moment of greatest splendour came in the eleventh century, when the abbey was expanded to house over a hundred monks. The bell tower, dated 1063, is a masterpiece of the Romanesque: about forty-eight metres high, arranged over nine storeys that can be climbed all the way up to the bell chamber. An inscribed slab even preserves the name of its architect, Deusdedit, a rare detail for the period.

Pomposa was also a great centre of culture. Within its walls is bound the memory of Guido, the monk to whom we owe the revolution of medieval musical notation: according to tradition, it was right here, among the Benedictines, that the insights destined to change the way music is written and read came to maturity. The walls of the church guard extensive cycles of frescoes, and the complex preserves cloisters and monastic rooms that can be visited together with the attached museum.

The silence of the delta

The charm of Pomposa lies in what surrounds it. There are no queues, no lines of coaches: only the wind over the fields of the delta, the herons and a low, damp light that changes every hour. It is a silent alternative to the more celebrated abbeys, a place where history is not staged but simply left to breathe.

When to go

Visit it in spring or early autumn, when the days are clear and the countryside is neither too parched nor too grey. Arrive early, climb the bell tower if it's open, and then stop: the Po delta rewards those who have the patience to stay.

Related guides: Emilia-Romagna by train: a slow itinerary along the Via Emilia without a car.

How to get there

The Abbey of Pomposa stands in the municipality of Codigoro, along the state road Romea 309 connecting Ravenna to Venice, the most convenient way to arrive by car; from Ferrara you follow the link road towards Porto Garibaldi and then the Romea. The nearest railway station is that of Codigoro, on the line from Ferrara, a few kilometres from the abbey, from which you continue by local bus.

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