History, characteristics and historical-artistic features of the architectural complex
Via Mario Finzi is dedicated to the young Jewish Bolognese musician and magistrate who was delegated to assist the persecuted and was himself deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz, from which he never returned. It was called Vicolo Tintinaga, an obscure name, perhaps from the Bolognese word of the same sound, a synonym for someone ineffectual. In fact, it was the alley that housed the so-called Posterla della Porta Nova secondary exit. In Roman times this street was already outside the urban settlement as evidenced by the archaeological finds recovered at number 4 under the Synagogue, and at the end of the street under Palazzo Belloni.
The entrance to the Synagogue, directly on the street, is relatively recent and dates back to the post-war period.
Via De’ Gombruti took its name from the family of the same name. The street layout is located within the perimeter of the Roman urban settlement, as evidenced by the finds at house number 9 (House of the Synagogue) and house number 11 (Palazzo Belloni)
The House at number 7, is known as Casa Gombruti or Casa de’ Gombruti, but the Gombruti family is not known in the history of medieval Bologna.
The Gombrutis, in the Middle Ages did not own towers and, in a later era, never became members of that higher nobility that monopolised city government.
They died out in the seventeenth century, leaving no trace of their name. Only for a brief period did one member of the family hold a noble title. In 1530, Francesco Gombruti married the daughter of the Count of Panico, Ludovico di Bonifazio, and also inherited the noble title.
Two generations later, Vincenzo was the last to bear the name of Gombruti. Having died without male descendants, Isabella, daughter of Giovanni, still living in 1615, was the last of the family. Casa Gombruti has remained as it was rebuilt in the 400s, after it had been destroyed by a fire that broke out upon the death of Annibale Bentivoglio. It is a rare example of timber architecture, in which simple and essential structural elements have been decorated with dentils and grooves.
Casa dei Gombruti number 7 is “of historical and artistic interest pursuant to Law 1989/39 by act issued pursuant to Law 364/1909 with notification dated 26/01/1992”.
The ground floor of Casa Gombruti is part of the Casa della Sinagoga real estate complex and is owned by the Jewish Community of Bologna.
The Casa de’ Gombruti building, located in the street of the same name, at house number 7, and the adjacent building between house number 9, and number 4 of via Mario Finzi where the Synagogue Hall is located, which is the subject of this intervention, together constitute a “single architectural complex, made unitary by the structural and functional complementarity of the two buildings”, as per the note from the Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali ed Architettonici of the monuments of Bologna number 8000 dated 19.05.1999:
The wooden portico at street number 7, used jointly with the Community, on the front of via de’ Gombruti has already undergone restoration, and the Synagogue Hall has been restored in the same way, through a direct intervention by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali ed Architettonici for the monuments of Bologna, which entrusted the direction of works to the architect Luciano Serchia.
The building at street number 7 of via de’ Gombruti is situated between via Gombruti itself and the inner courtyard belonging to number 9 and consists of a ground floor and two upper floors.
The building at street number 9 of via de’ Gombruti extends from via de’ Gombruti to the rear via Mario Finzi, formerly vicolo Tintinaga.
It is made up of an original building lying alongside via de’ Gombruti and another building section formerly used as a single room, probably a warehouse, which was subsequently refurbished. During the restoration, right in the basements of the nineteenth-century warehouse, extremely fine cellars centred on a block of sixteen sail vaults in brick with adjacent rooms covered with barrel vaults were discovered.
The discovered floors, from the Roman era, feature a simple beaten-earth floor as regards the flooring from the Republican age, and flooring partly in mosaic and partly in opus signinum for the imperial period, as well as subsequent interventions in the late medieval era. Fragments of frescoed plasterwork currently being reassembled and a double flooring heated with hot water by means of an on-site furnace were found.
Information regarding the building above, namely the Synagogue, is provided to us by the account left to us by Marco Momigliano, Chief Rabbi of the local Jewish Association.
Information regarding the Roman flooring, similar to that found in Palazzo Belloni about 200 metres away, is currently being acquired through excavations and restorations carried out directly by the local archaeological superintendency.
Information regarding the Synagogue Hall above comes from the autobiography of Marco Momigliano, Rabbi of Bologna, who arrived in the city on 30/7/1866 from his native Mondovì and worked in the city for 50 years.
Initially in 1868, a premises at via de’ Gombruti number 17 (present-day number 7) was rented. In 1874, the building at via de’ Gombruti number 9 was put up for auction and the Israelite Voluntary Association proceeded to purchase it, entrusting the design to the engineer Guido Lisi of Bologna. The works, which began in 1874, were officially completed in June 1877, for the festival of Pentecost (Shavuot) during which the inauguration took place. The new Synagogue Hall was erected in the inner part of the plot, expanding the existing building and occupying a portion of land overlooking vicolo Tintinaga. The hall had a rectangular shape, with a height of mt. 13,50 covered by a barrel vault, with rounded ends, which receives light from two large arched windows on the sides of the altar (Aron Ha Kodesh), placed naturally on the eastern side.
On the southern side of the hall, there was a service corridor on the ground floor and the women’s gallery on the first floor. The parapet was closed by blank balustrades surmounted by small columns delimiting five fields closed by gilded wooden grates. The hall accommodated 36 first-class seats and 60 second-class seats, all facing the Aron Ha Kodesh. At the beginning of the century, the architect Attilio Muggia, a professor at the Royal School of Engineering in Bologna, was commissioned to design the renovation of the existing Synagogue, which was no longer suitable for the growing Community of Bologna.
Muggia, over the course of at least a decade, [produced] different proposals for the Synagogue Hall, but only in 1928 was the new construction completed.
An axonometric view of the interior, drawn up in 1915, already shows us the sumptuous appearance of the Synagogue. The hall still had the dimensions of the previous one, but the ceiling is a pavilion vault with friezed ribs that end in a rectangle which encloses the elliptical lantern – skylight. The wall of the Aron and the opposite one are crowned by pilaster strips and bands that divide them into a double order. The northern and southern side walls are supported by a double order of columns with corbel capitals. The hall thus appears wider; the women’s gallery, thanks also to the lateral steps, takes on the appearance of a theatrical loggia. On both sides of the Aron are the wooden stalls where the elders of the temple sat: the Parnassim. In 1943, probably on 25 September, the Synagogue was hit by bombings. In the post-war period, with great effort, the Israelite Community once again faced the reconstruction of the Synagogue, entrusting the commission to Attilio Muggia’s son: the engineer Guido. In vain he presented a proposal for his father’s Synagogue with the adoption of new structural solutions. Probably for economic reasons, Guido Muggia reworked the project, replacing the pavilion vault with another type of roof. The architectural ensemble still has the same structure, the hall is flanked by two ambulatories on the lower floor and by the loggias of the women’s gallery on the upper one.
However, the roof is ribbed barrel-vaulted. On the western wall on Vicolo Tintinaga, now renamed Via Mario Finzi, opens a large circular window enclosing a Star of David. On the opposite side, above the Aron, a large round-headed window is placed. The interior is sober, with square-based pillars and architraves on the lower floor. The architraves on the upper floor are round-arched instead. The ribs of the vault punctuate the interior by delimiting lozenges, creating the illusion of a continuous vault while it is actually a side-by-side series of flat ceilings. An important new feature is the new street front with a plastered facade simulating stone cladding. At the centre opens the circular window and on its two sides two slightly protruding lower sections house the entrance doors to the ambulatories and the circular windows positioned in correspondence with the galleries of the women's section.
The floor level of the Synagogue is higher than that of the street and beneath it lies a large basement that, likely due to limited financial resources, was left as a storage area for rubble from the previous destroyed Synagogue, until the restorations of 2004.
Design guidelines and conservative restoration works
The proposed interventions are to be carried out within the building complex known as the Synagogue of Bologna, located between Via Gombruti n.9, and Via Mario Finzi, owned by the Comunità ebraica di Bologna, registered at the N.C.E.U. on sheet n.200, parcel n.13, sub.13.
The restoration project of the Synagogue drawn up by the Jewish Community in 2002, approved and deemed worthy of funding by the Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage and subsequently adopted by the Superintendence for Environmental and Architectural Heritage for Emilia Romagna, provided for the restoration of the interior and exterior of the Synagogue as well as the recovery of the Synagogue basements to be used as a multi-purpose hall for social activities of the Jewish Community and the city in general. The use of the basements was also planned for use as a Jewish ritual canteen and, since the location of the kitchens was not permissible, a vertical connection was planned with the current Jewish ritual kitchen (kosher) located on the second floor of the building, by means of a hoist / food lift programmed to be used on Shabbat as well. The food lift is located in the internal courtyard of the Synagogue, on the left side of the glass wall. On the eastern side, for symmetry, the Comune imposed a similar structure during the granting of the permit, which has already been built.
The basement rooms, newly discovered, present a unique opportunity for an environment in which the Roman flooring, naturally protected by the vaults above, can be fully or partially left open to the public who will be able to admire it beneath a glass flooring, like that of the current Sala Borsa, where however only masonry and not mosaics and cocciopesto can be admired.
Essentially, upon completion of the works, we will have one of the finest rooms in Bologna, where the Roman flooring will be matched by a series of vaults of remarkable beauty. This multi-purpose underground room will finally allow the Jewish Community of Bologna to also host cultural activities of primary civic interest.