Why go
Pause outside for details easily missed on the way to the Arca: two commemorative columns, medieval funerary monuments and the rose window. The square sets up a useful contrast with the church’s later Baroque interior. The cemetery setting also explains why several tombs stand outside the façade.
The full story
The square in front of San Domenico was used by listeners gathered for sermons from a pulpit at the church corner. It also served as a cemetery, which explains the prominent tombs still visible there. One column carries a bronze Saint Dominic; another honours the Madonna of the Rosary and commemorates the end of plague in the city. The tomb of Rolandino de’ Passeggeri dates to 1305, while Egidio Foscarari’s tomb, beside a house, incorporates an older Byzantine marble arch. The Romanesque façade dates from the thirteenth century and was restored in the early twentieth. A large rose window sits above the portal, whose lunette contains a copy of an image of Saint Dominic blessing Bologna. To the left, the Ghisilardi chapel introduces a Renaissance note. These features turn the approach to the church into part of the visit: the forecourt explains the public role of a preaching order before the interior presents its later art.