Waiting for the weekend libations, today's window of our calendar displays a picture of San Petronio who, as usual, carries Bologna as if on a tray. It is a contracted Bologna, a synecdoche: the city is represented in its essential and symbolic aspects, with no dimensional likelihood . Bologna is shown here as a walled city (but a door is very clear and oversized) that encloses the towers, clearly recognizable as Asinelli and Garisenda. Unfortunately at that time there was no interest in depicting the omnipresence of the portico, perhaps because it was such an obvious and domestic attribute that it did not deserve such visibility, or simply because it was difficult to sculpt in such a small space.
This iconography, San Petronio carrying the city, is extremely widespread, but the example we show today has an added value. In fact, the sculpture, together with 6 others, is exhibited at the Medieval Museum, an important part of the component of via Galliera and via Manzoni, but it comes from the Palazzo della Mercanzia, a jewel that pinpoints another component of the Porticoes of Bologna World Heritage Site.
The statues depicting Justice and the patron saints of Bologna, replaced by copies, come from the oculi of the ancient Loggia del Carrobbio, namely the court of the Mercanzia. Today, in room 4 of the Museum, they are visible face to face, a privilege that allows us to still appreciate some traces of color and feel that the models for those faces, with such a realistic and familiar look, still live among us.