The city of Ferrara was one of the greatest cultural centers of Europe thanks to the heyday reached during the rule of the Este family (since 1264 until 1598). Moreover, it hosted the biggest personalities of the Italian Renaissance as Piero della Francesca, Pisanello, Mantegna, Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini, Petrarch, Guarino of Verona, Ludovico Ariosto, Tasso, all at the court of the Este. The main monuments are linked at this family, starting from the Estense Castle, built in 1385 and surrounded by the waters of the moat. It is the symbol of the power of this family with the ducal residence, now the Town Hall. Among the religious buildings there is the Cathedral of St. George built from the twelfth, with the facade of the church begun in the Romanesque style and continued in Gothic style. The Cathedral Museum is rich in finds and sculptures mostly coming from the cathedral. Very beatiful is the Loggia dei Mercanti, with the row of antique shops, present since the Middle Ages. As for the civil architecture, we point Schifanoia Palace wanted by Alberto V d’Este in 1385, houses the Museum of Ancient Art, and Palazzo Costabili that houses the National Archaeological Museum rich in finds of the Etruscan city of Spina. In the rest of the province there are many testimonies of the Este family as Voghiera, where you can admire Belriguardo, the first residence built outside the city walls, known as the Versailles of the Este. Mesola, an ancient feud of the Este, became their summer residence and the remains of a castle of the sixteenth century. Not to be missed are also the towns of Codigoro, the Pomposa Abbey, the monastery of the most influential of Europe between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and Spina, a greek-Etruscan city where nearby there is a necropolis with more than 4,000 graves. And still, Argenta of medieval origin located on the left bank of the Rhine and Cento, where particular is the Jewish quarter, founded in the fourteenth century, when came a Jewish community that fostered a thriving business of hemp.