Church of Sant’Antonio in Polesine (Chiesa di Sant’Antonio in Polesine)

The monastery of S. Antonio in Polesine was founded in 1257 by Azzo VII d’Este and his daughter Beatrice, who had manifested an early religious vocation and had chosen to follow the Benedictine rule.

The first women’s monastery in Ferrara, it is located on what in the Middle Ages was a river island, at the confluence of the two main branches of the Po di Ferrara, Primaro and Volano, hence the name “in Polesine”. Progressive drying caused the northern bed of the river to turn into a “ghiara”, giving rise to the street of the same name in the early 15th century. It was Borso d’Este who included this area within the city walls in 1451, transforming Sant’Antonio into an urban monastery.

The building complex, enlarged and modified over the centuries, now includes an external church, preceded by a narthex overlooking a vast open space, and an internal church, that of the cloistered nuns, decorated with valuable frescoes of the Giotto school, a large cloister around which the monastic rooms are organised (refectory, chapter, winter choir, dormitories, abbess’s rooms) and in which the miraculous tomb of Blessed Beatrice is located, a second cloister and a large garden at the rear.