Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: Museums serving history in manageable bites

The landmarks housing Ferrara’s museums are worth visiting for their historical and architectural merits alone. Their content provides glimpses of Italy’s past in small, easy-to-digest bites.

These photographs are from Casa Romei, built in 1445 by Giovanni Romei who married Polissena of the ruling Este family, and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, a 16th-century palace primarily showcasing artifacts from the Greco-Etruscan seaport of Spina.

My take-away lesson? The true definition of symposium gleaned from text in the archeological museum.

During all those years of working with nonprofits, why did no one ever fill me in on the proper recipe for conducting a symposium? Comfortable couches for reclining; snacks within easy reach; and, most importantly, free-flowing wine generating free-flowing conversation and exchange of ideas. I would have attended more and staged more if I had only known.

Although, maybe those years of gatherings in the over-sized corner booth of the Kangaroo Court on the River Walk were just that.

Let Paseo del Rio lore be altered henceforth. The almost mandatory, after-work, boozy gatherings of River Rats were not mere happy hours; they were lofty downtown symposia.

Dionysus certainly would hoist a glass in approval. And, as I learned this in Italy, Bacchus would as well.