Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta


World Heritage Identification Number: 733

World Heritage since: 1995

Category: Cultural Heritage

Transboundary Heritage: No

Endangered Heritage: No

Country: 🇮🇹 Italy

Continent: Europe

UNESCO World Region: Europe and North America

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Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and Its Po Delta: A Cultural and Architectural Gem

Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta, located in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, is a testament to the intellectual and artistic prowess of the Italian Renaissance. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, this city offers a unique blend of history, culture, and natural beauty that attracts visitors from around the globe.

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UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site

Ferrara, which grew up around a ford over the River Po, became an intellectual and artistic centre that attracted the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. Here, Piero della Francesca, Jacopo Bellini and Andrea Mantegna decorated the palaces of the House of Este. The humanist concept of the 'ideal city' came to life here in the neighbourhoods built from 1492 onwards by Biagio Rossetti according to the new principles of perspective. The completion of this project marked the birth of modern town planning and influenced its subsequent development.

UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site

Criterion (iii): The Este ducal residences in the Po Delta illustrate the influence of Renaissance culture on the natural landscape in an exceptional manner.

Criterion (v): The Po Delta is an outstanding planned cultural landscape which retains its original form to a remarkable extent.

Encyclopedia Record: Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. As of 2016, it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated 44 kilometres northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north. The town has broad streets and numerous palaces dating from the Renaissance, when it hosted the court of the House of Este. For its beauty and cultural importance, it has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

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Additional Site Details

Area: 46,712 hectares

UNESCO Criteria: (ii) — Significant interchange of human values
(iii) — Unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition
(iv) — Outstanding example of a type of building or landscape
(v) — Outstanding example of traditional human settlement
(vi) — Directly associated with events or living traditions

Coordinates: 44.83777778 , 11.61944444

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Image of Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta

© Massimo Baraldi, CC BY 2.5 it Resized from original.

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Country Information: Italy

Flag of Italy

Official Name: Italian Republic

Capital: Rome

Continent: Europe

Population (2024): 58,986,023

Population (2023): 58,993,475

Population (2022): 59,013,667

Land Area: 295,720 sq km

Currency: Euro (EUR)

Country Data Sources

Last updated: January 18, 2026

Portions of the page Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta are based on data from UNESCO — World Heritage List Dataset and on text from the Wikipedia article Ferrara, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes made. Additional original content by World Heritage Explorer (WHE), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. WHE is not affiliated with UNESCO or the World Heritage Committee. Legal Notice. Privacy Policy.

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