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Casa di Giulietta and San Fermo a Verona
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Heading north from the Arena, Via Mazzini is a narrow
traffic-free street lined with generally expensive clothes, shoe
and jewellery shops. A left turn at the end leads to the Piazza
dell' Erbe , while a right takes you into Via Cappello , a
street named after the family that Shakespeare turned into the
Capulets - and on the left, at no. 23, is the Casa di Giulietta
(Juliet's House) . In fact, although the "Capulets" and the "Montagues"
(Montecchi) did exist, Romeo and Juliet were entirely fictional
creations. The house itself, constructed at the start of the
fourteenth century, is in a fine state of preservation, but is
largely empty.
Via Cappello leads into Via Leoni with its Roman gate, the Porta
Leoni , and a segment of excavated Roman street, exposed three
metres below today's street level. At the end of Via Leoni and
across the road rises the red-brick San Fermo church, whose
inconsistent exterior betrays the fact that it consists of two
churches combined. Flooding forced the Benedictines to
superimpose a second church on the one founded in the eighth
century. The Gothic upper church has no outstanding works of art
but is graceful enough; the Romanesque lower church, entered
from the left of the choir, has impressive low vaulting,
sometimes obscured by exhibitions.
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