Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella

The distric of Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella is at that point where the Valpolicella blends with the Valdadige and includes the community of Domegliara, Gargagnago, Monte, Ponton and San Giorgio di Valpolicella.

There are numerous finds of graves, inscriptions and remains of Roman houses. In 1984, in Borgo Aleardi, an indirect cremation burial of the first century A.D. was discovered; whose grave goods are today preserved at the Verona Core Operations of the Archaeological Superintendence of Veneto. More recently, is the extraordinary discovery of a Roman house near the parish church.

Sant’Ambrogio is a center renowned for its wines and for its precious marble.

Wine production is favoured by the particular climatic conditions and wine production in these areas dates back from the fifth century B.C. The many wineries in the area continue this ancient tradition, crafting top-tier products, distributed internationally.

The marble of Sant'Ambrogio are exported all over the world, among them the famous Rosso Verona. Already in Roman age the area was known for the activities related to the extraction and processing of Verona’s limestone, which, continued over the centuries, have made this country a renowned industrial centre. Tangible signs of this tradition are, for example, the ancient quarries (preà re) on the hill of Grola and in Coali in San Giorgio. It is widely believed that the stone materials used for the construction of the Arena di Verona come, in large part, from Cavarena di Sotto. Many other monuments of the historical centre of Verona are made with ambrosian marble, like the beautiful Fountain of Madonna in Piazza delle Erbe.

The city hosted the world’s fair Marmomacchine from 1961 until 1992, now transferred to the exhibition centre of Verona.

In the main square, at the top of a beautiful and dramatic marble staircase, is the Municipal Building. On the staircase, there are some statues: at the base, there are two lions, the guardians of the square, whereas in the middle there is the Monument to the Stonemason, the work of sculptor Ante Marinovic, made in Rosso Verona. The Town Hall has a main body with two protruding wings perfectly symmetrical. The entire building has, at the top, a beautiful painted frieze. Inside this decorative band, there are represented the districts and main villas. In the front panel is instead depicted the whole chain of marble from the concept phase to the extraction. Of particular value is a fresco dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which survives on one of the external facades, representing the “Madonna nursing the baby”.

Villa Brenzoni Bassani, starting 1960, is proprety of the district of Sant'Ambrogio and it is locaded inside the exhibition center. The building is the result of a series of successive interventions in time, from the thirteenth century. The current appearance of the villa is due to a renovation in neo-classical style, wanted by Chiarastella Brenzoni Volpini around 1805. Paolo Brenzoni, grandson of Chiarastella, is the founder of the School of Art of Sant'Ambrogio.

Villa Nichesola Mocenigo was originally built in the sixteenth century. It underwent a radical transformation in the late sixteenth century thanks to lawyer Fabio Nichesola, owner of the villa. The lack of a higher central part does not make Villa Nichesola a traditional Venetian villa. According to the testimony of Scipione Maffei, the Villa was covered inside and outside with frescoes by Paolo Farinati. Not much is left of the external decoration. Well visible are instead the beautiful murals that adorn the rooms of the Villa.

Villa Serego Alighieri is composed of a series of separated buildings, pavilions, courtyards, loggias of different periods and styles. Pietro I, son of the great poet Dante, in 1353 purchased the first plot corresponding to the current Casal dei Ronchi. The rooms of the main building are internally decorated with stucco, emblems, mosaics, frescoes of eighteenth century, depicting statues of gods and fake architectural spaces. There is also a chapel dedicated to the Virgin built in 1637. It contains a beautiful “Madonna and Child” attributed to Liberale from Verona.

The beautiful little church of San Zeno in Poia is located on the hill of Grola, traditionally the best site for the production of Recioto. The church retains externally the original Romanesque structure, built of blocks of regular pink limestone. The interior has a single nave with a semi-circular apse and the remains of medieval frescoes, among which we recognize a “San Zeno” and “St. George on horseback”.

Behind the Gargagnago church, begins the health path. The equipped path, ideal for lovers of outdoor fitness, steeps in the green to climb to the ancient village of San Giorgio di Valpolicella.

The village of San Giorgio di Valpolicella, in November 2015, has joined the Club of “Italy's most beautiful Towns”. This is considered the richer place of Roman inscriptions, not only of Valpolicella, but perhaps of the entire province of Verona. Many of these inscriptions are preserved in museums and in private collections, including the Museum Maffeiano and the Archaeological Museum of the Roman Theater in Verona. The ancient Romanesque-barbaric parish church of San Giorgio was probably built near a pagan temple. The interior of the church is divided into three naves, with apses on both short sides. The church has some paintings of particular historic and artistic value. Among these are the “Resurrection of Christ” attributed to Palma il Giovane and the “Martyrdom of St. George”, work of the painter G. B. Lanceni. The bell tower and the cloister dates from the twelfth century. The capitals of the columns are of particular interest: they are worked in different forms and carved with animals and plant motifs.

On the north side of the church, there is the Archaeological and Lapidary Museum of San Giorgio. This is a valuable collection of artefacts that documents the history of the place from the Paleolithic age to the Paleo-Christian era.

The Cypress of Stone is a monument particularly dear to the inhabitants of the place. It was erected in 1929 in memory of a tragic event that occurred two years earlier. On the evening of June 6, 1927, a truck loaded with quarried stones and carrying 13 stone workers, capsized in the curve of Fontana Vecia in San Giorgio, and rushes into the embankment, crushing 11 young men. Those fatal stones were used for the construction of this monument.