The full name of Via Adelardi is Via Guglielmo degli Adelardi, although it was formerly called Via Gorgadello, in reference to the 'puddles of water, or eddies, that formed both in the city and outside it, before the drainage pipes were built, which date back to 1425. […] In 1544, a drainage pipe was installed as far as the Bishop's Palace, to remove water from Via Gorgadello, and to prevent the square from sinking. When the cathedral was built (1135), the present square was formed on its southern side, and on the northern side a small village was established beyond the ditch, or the place in which the waterway dropped a bit, which was later converted into Via Gorgadello. It was named 'new' (Nuovo), because it was more recent than the one on the right of the Po' (G. Melchiorri, Nomenclatura ed Etimologia delle Piazze e delle Strade di Ferrara e Ampliamenti all 'Opera di Gerolamo Melchiorri, edited by C. Bassi, 2G Editrice, Ferrara 2009, p. 84s.).

The area behind the Cathedral's apse was bombed and destroyed. There, towards Via Adelardi, the new Sacristy of the Cathedral, designed by architects Carlo Bassi, Massimo Dalla Torre and Sabina Boselli, was erected at the end of the 20th century. The sacristy is enriched by The Story of Salvation, a ceiling painting by Paolo Baratella, flanked by a wing used as a lapidary. A tomb containing the remains of six bodies was found in the basement, perhaps evidence of the Cortilazzo cemetery that once stood in that area, also mentioned by Melchiorri. Here there is a small Marian shrine.

A plaque at number 5 shows evidence of the first restoration of these buildings, dating back to 1937, while the one at number 9 reminds us of the origins of what is considered the oldest tavern in the world. Still open today, currently named Al Brindisi, it dates back to 1435, when it could only be reached by boat. Its fame has been handed down over the centuries, earning it a clientele that has included (and still includes) by many famous people.

The tavern in Via Adelardi is also mentioned by Ludovico Ariosto, in the passage that also appears in the inscription at number 9, which reads: 'Antica hosteria A.D. 1435 / Gli occhi di Cuchiolin più farebbonsi / di Sabbatino Mariano e simili / quando di Gorgadello ubriachi escono… “Lena” L. Ariosto'.

'He never seemed to stay at home in the evening. Around eight o’clock, or a quarter past, on Via Gorgadello, it was easy to catch sight of him just as he was leaving. He would linger a moment on the threshold, looking up, looking right, then left, as if uncertain of the time or of which direction to take. At last he would set off, merging into the stream of people who at that hour, in summer just as in winter, unhurriedly passed by the lit-up windows of Via Bersaglieri del Po, much as they would along the Mercerie in Venice.

Where was he off to? He was taking a turn, strolling about, here and there, apparently without any particular end in view. …

Between eight and nine o'clock he might be seen anywhere in the city. Every now and then, one was surprised to find him standing still before some shop window in Via Mazzini or Via Saraceno, looking intently over the shoulders of whoever had stopped in front of him. Often he paused beside the stalls selling trinkets or confectionery, arranged in rows of ten along the southern flank of the Duomo, or in Piazza Travaglio, or in Via Garibaldi, staring fixedly and without a word at the homely goods on display. However, it was Via San Romano’s crammed and impoverished pavements that he preferred to frequent. It was strange to bump into him there, under those low arches, with their acrid reek of fried fish, salt pork, wine and cheap yarn, and above all crowded with lower-class women, soldiers, boys, cloaked peasants, and so on; to see his eyes so vivid, joyful, satisfied, a vague smile spread across his face.'

(G. Bassani, The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, in The Novel of Ferrara, translated by Jamie McKendrick, Penguin Classics, 2012, Kindle Edition.)

'Around three, four o’clock in the morning, filtering through the shutters of Dr Fadigati’s flat, there was always a small glow of light. In the silence of the alley, interrupted only by the raucous wheeze of the owls that nested far up there along the Duomo’s dizzying, barely visible entablature, there would fly faint tatters of celestial music, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner: Wagner most of all, perhaps because Wagnerian music was the most apt to evoke a certain atmosphere. The idea that the that the traffic policeman Manservigi, or the doorkeeper Trapolini, or the ex-footballer Baùsi should at that very moment be guests of the doctor was unlikely, except as a passing joke, to cross the mind of the last night-walker, on his way at that hour down Via Gorgadello.'

(G. Bassani, The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, in The Novel of Ferrara, translated by Jamie McKendrick, Penguin Classics, 2012, Kindle version.)

'As a curiosity, allow me to mention, how in the 16th century, the Gorgadello tavern belonging to a certain Chiucchiolino, known as 'il Chiù', was famous for good wine; and to be able to drink it, money was found by pawning things to the Jews!'

(G. Melchiorri, Nomenclatura ed Etimologia delle Piazze e delle Strade di Ferrara e Ampliamenti all’Opera di Gerolamo Melchiorri, edited by C. Bassi, 2G Editrice, Ferrara 2009, p 85s.)