Cremona, Monumental centre of Cremona

You can start sight-seeing Cremona from Piazza del Comune, in the city centre. Kernel of the Roman castrum, it includes the following five monuments: the Cathedral (Duomo), the Torrazzo, the Baptistery (Battistero), the Loggia dei Militi and the Palazzo Comunale. The Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Mary of the Assumption (Santa Maria Assunta), is a masterpiece of Medieval architecture of the early 12th century. Its façade shows a beautiful prothyrum with column-bearing lions. Its bell tower, the Torrazzo, is the highest in Italy (112m) and the top can be reached more than 500 steps upstairs. On the other side of the square are the porticoes of Loggia dei Militi, a civil Gothic building of 1292, as well as Palazzo del Comune, a typical municipal building in Lombard style, which was built in the 13th century. On the south side of the square stands the octagonal Baptistery dedicated to St. John. Northwards, in the 16th-century Palazzo Affaitati is located Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, a civic museum with an art gallery and a museum dedicated to Stradivari which preserves instruments of inestimable value made by the lute maker of Cremona. If you walk through Corso Garibaldi heading northwards you will reach Palazzo Raimondi, which hosts the International School of Violin-making (Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria), which was founded in 1938. On the same street you will see the St. Agatha Church (Chiesa di Sant’Agata) and its neoclassical façade by Luigi Voghera which resembles an Ionic Temple. Opposite this church stands Palazzo Cittanova, built in 1265, which shows Gothic arcades and merlons with arrow-shaped slits. Going southwards, you will see the Chiesa di Santa Margherita, a unique example of Mannerism of the 16th century by Giulio Campi. If you go in the same direction you can get to St. Augustine Church (Chiesa di Sant’Agostino), which was erected in the mid 14th century and whose austere façade features five rose windows. If you go westwards from Torrazzo, you will reach Teatro Ponchielli, a theatre designed by the architect Luigi Canonica on the basis of a pre-existing building destroyed by a fire. The theatre was opened to the public in 1908. On the other side of the city centre, in Corso Matteotti, stands Palazzo Fodri, which was built in1490. It is one of the best examples of stately building of the Lombard Renaissance.