Fer­rara, which grew up around a ford over the Riv­er Po, became an intel­lec­tu­al and artis­tic cen­tre that attract­ed the great­est minds of the Ital­ian Renais­sance in the 15th and 16th cen­turies. Here, Piero del­la Francesca, Jacopo Belli­ni and Andrea Man­teg­na dec­o­rat­ed the palaces of the House of Este. The human­ist con­cept of the ‘ide­al city‘ came to life here in the neigh­bour­hoods built from 1492 onwards by Bia­gio Ros­set­ti accord­ing to the new prin­ci­ples of per­spec­tive. The com­ple­tion of this project marked the birth of mod­ern town plan­ning and influ­enced its sub­se­quent devel­op­ment.