Vigevano is an ancient town in the province of Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy, which possesses many artistic treasures and runs a huge industrial business. It is at the center of a district called Lomellina, a great rice-growing agricultural centre. Vigevano hosts a Duomo, a tower by Bramante, the Castello Sforzesco, and the world-famous shoe-museum, dedicated to the town's major activity, which is in fact the industrial production of fashionable shoes. Church San Michele in Pavia Pavia (the ancient Ticinum) (population 71,000) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. ... Lombardy (in Italian Lombardia) is a region in northern Italy between the Alps and the Po Valley. ... Duomo is a generic Italian term for a cathedral church. ... Headline text Headline text Donato Bramante Donato Bramante (1444 - March 11, 1514), Italian architect, who introduced the Early Renaissance style to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his most famous design was St. ... Womens shoes on display in a shop window, July 2005 A shoe is an item of footwear. ... A museum is typically a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. ... The term fashion applies to a characteristic means of expression or presentation; fashions may follow trends, in which they gain or lose popularity. ...

Vigevano is crowned by the Castello Sforzesco, a stronghold rebuilt 1492-4 for Ludovico Maria Sforza ('Lodovico il Moro'), the great patron born in the town, who transformed the fortification of the Visconti into a rich noble residence, at the cusp of Gothic and Renaissance. Leonardo was his guest at Vigevano. Bramante came to work for him. The old castle has a unique raised covered road, high enough for horsemen to ride through, that communicates between the new palace and the old fortifications; there is a Falconry and the Ladies' Loggia made for Beatrice d'Este. Stronghold is a commercial version of Apache Web Server, distributed by RedHat Inc. ... Ludovico Sforza (Ludovico il Moro, The Moor) (July 27, 1452–May 27, 1508), a member of the Sforza dynasty of Milan, Italy, was the second son of Francesco Sforza, and was famed as patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists. ... Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter. ...

Vigevano also has one of the finest piazzas in Italy, an elongated rectangle that is almost in the ideal proportions 1:2 advocated by the architectural theorist Antonio Filarete, which is also said to have been laid out by Bramante, and was certainly built for Lodovico il Moro, starting in 1492/3 and completed in record time, unusual for early Renaissance town planning; the Piazza del Duomo was actually planned to form a noble forecourt to his castle, unified by the arcades that completely surround the square, an amenity of the new North Italian towns built in the 13th century. The town's main street enters through a sham arcaded facade that preserves the unity of the space as at the Place des Vosges. It is significant that Lodovico demolished the former palazzo of the commune of Vigevano to create the space. The opposite end was enclosed in the 17th century by the concave Baroque facade of the cathedral, cleverly adjusted to bring the ancient duomo into a line perpendicular to the axis of the piazza and centered on it. In a gesture that combined architecture and politics, the bishop removed Sforza's rampway that led to the castello's forecourt. Fountain in the Place des Vosges The Place des Vosges is Paris oldest (and some say most beautiful) square. ... A commune or comune is a system of social and economic organization which involves the common ownership of resources and/or shared obligations. ...

The town is the birthplace of Gian Carlo Rota. Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999, known as Juan Carlos Rota to Spanish speakers) was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher. ...

History

The earliest notices of Vigevano date from the tenth century, when it was a favoured residence of the Lombard king Arduin, for the sake of the good hunting in the vicinity. Arduin is a role-playing game set in the mythical world created by the late David A. Hargrave in the mid to late 1970s. ...

The cathedral was built in 1100, rebuilt in the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth by Bishop Caramuel Lobkowitz, 1680, himself an architect, who also contributed to the expense.

Vigevano was a Ghibelline commune, favoring the Emperor and was accordingly besieged and taken by the Milanese in 1201 and again in 1275. In 1328 it finally surrendered to Azzone Visconti, and thereafter shared the political fortunes of Milan. The Church of S. Pietro Martiere was built, with the adjacent Dominican convent, by Filippo Maria Visconti in 1445. In the last years of Visconti domination it sustained a siege by Francesco Sforza, himself a native of the city. Once he was settled in power in Lombardy, Sforza procured the erection of Vigevano as the seat of a bishop and provided its revenues. Filippo Maria Visconti Filippo Maria Visconti, (1392–1447), who became nominal ruler of Pavia in 1402, succeeded his assassinated brother Gian Maria Visconti as Duke of Milan. ...

The first bishop was Galeazzo Pietra, succeeded by his nephew Maurizio Pietra (1552). Marsilio Landriani (1594) founded a Barnabite college for the education of young men. Giorgio Odescalchi (1610) was a very zealous pastor; the process of his beatification has been commenced. Giovanni Caramuel Lobkowitz (1675), who designed the duomo's facade, was also the author of many philosophical and theological works, though his "Theologia fundamentalis" was censured. Pier Marino Sonnani (1688), a Minorite, enlarged the seminary. Nicola Saverio Gamboni was placed in the see by Napoleon in 1801.

See also geography of Italy. This article describes the geography of Italy. ...

External link

• The Lomellina

Reference

• Siegfried Giedion, Space, time and Architecture