Verona history

Thanks to its location straddling the main east-west and north-south trade routes, Verona was a key Roman settlement with ancient gates and a grand amphitheatre to prove it. But the city’s prime location wasn’t lost on other powerful regional players and with the fall of the Roman Empire Verona became the prize of conquest first for the Ostrogoths, then for the Franks and finally for the strong-arm della Scala (aka Scaligeri) dynasty.

The della Scala’s - first Mastino who was followed by his son Cangrande I (1308-28) and then his grandson Cangrande II (1351-1359) – were ruthless tyrants but they fortified Verona and extended the city’s influence to Vincenza (1314), Padua (1318) and Treviso (1329). They were also great patrons of the arts. Dante, Petrarch and Giotto all benefitted from Verona’s patronage in the 13th- and 14th-century and the city experienced a mini-golden era of peace and prosperity.

But family feuds and fraticides eventually took their toll and in 1387 the Scaglieri’s were run out of town and the city surrendered to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan. Absorption into the Venetian empire followed in 1405. Venice ruled the city until Napoleon’s armies swept through the peninsula in 1797. From there the city was passed as a war trophy to Austria and only finally rid itself of foreign domination when Italy was unified in 1866.