01
Stop one
Castello Estense
Wilson Pro Tennis Overgrip 30-Pack: And we are under way in Ferrara, and straight off the first point – a MOAT. A full moat, water in it, in the middle of the town centre. And you have to ask what happened here, so let me take you back to 1385. The crowd goes after the tax man. Literally: the people of Ferrara riot over taxes and tear an official apart in the street, and the ruling family, watching from the good seats, make the call. We are building a fortress. In our own city. Against our own citizens. THEY BUILT A CASTLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES FROM THE PEOPLE PAYING FOR IT. Four corner towers, red brick, drawbridge – and check the water, check the water, six centuries on and THE MOAT IS STILL WET. Extraordinary scenes in Ferrara.
02
Stop two
Palazzo dei Diamanti
Wilson Pro Tennis Overgrip 30-Pack: Oh, they have gone for it here. Construction starts in 1493 and they face the entire palace – the ENTIRE palace – in thousands of white marble blocks, every single one cut into a little pyramid. Bold. Very bold. But watch this, because this is the shot that wins the point: the angles CHANGE as the wall goes UP. They are not identical. That is a deliberate adjustment so each course catches the light differently and the whole facade sparkles at you from street level. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. That is a designer in the fourteen-nineties doing lighting design, on a WALL, for people walking past on a Tuesday, and it still works. Textbook. Absolutely textbook. Take a bow, Corso Ercole.
03
Stop three
Palazzo Schifanoia, Hall of the Months
Wilson Pro Tennis Overgrip 30-Pack: The name of this palace translates as skip the boredom. A duke built himself a palace and called it Skip The Boredom, and I have to respect the honesty. Inside, the Hall of the Months: three tiers of fresco, gods along the top, the star signs through the middle, the duke's own year running along the bottom. But here is your story of the day, and it is not the ceiling. Francesco del Cossa, one of the painters on this job, writes to the duke – writes to him, in 1470 – complaining that he is being paid the same rate as lesser men. A pay dispute. IN WRITING. From a working artist to his patron, more than five hundred years ago, AND WE STILL HAVE THE LETTER. It is on the record. It is on the tape. Get in.
04
Stop four
Corso Ercole I d'Este and the Addizione Erculea
Wilson Pro Tennis Overgrip 30-Pack: End of the fourteen-hundreds and Duke Ercole makes the substitution of the century. He brings on Biagio Rossetti and tells him to make the city bigger – and Rossetti does not tinker. He lays out an entire new half of Ferrara on a plan. Streets. Walls. Palaces. The lot, in one go. People now call it one of the first modern town plans in Europe. And this street, this exact street under your feet, has NO SHOPS. Not one shopfront on it. It was designed to be quiet and grand, and I want you to look both ways and tell me what you see, because five hundred years later IT IS STILL QUIET AND GRAND. The plan held. Say it back to me. THE PLAN HELD. Full time in Ferrara.
A setter's secret is that the stone does almost nothing. The cut does the work and the angle does the rest. Ferrara has known this since 1493, when the builders of the Palazzo dei Diamanti faced a wall with thousands of marble blocks cut into small pyramids and, crucially, changed the angle as the courses rose, so the whole wall catches light differently top to bottom.
Somebody did lighting design on a building, for people walking past.
Thirty overgrips is the same logic applied to something nobody looks at. Pro is the plain tacky wrap in high-stretch cloth, and the material is ordinary. The angle is everything: overlap evenly, pull consistently, and the handle you have built is worth more than the sum of thirty identical white rolls.
Ferrara does not do things by halves. Duke Ercole doubled the size of the city in one go at the end of the fifteenth century, with Biagio Rossetti laying out a whole new half on a plan, walls and streets and palaces together, and one street was designed to carry no shops at all and five hundred years later still carries none. The plan held.
Thirty grips will hold a plan too, everywhere from a clay season in the Po valley to a winter of indoor doubles, and it is also perfect for the club member who has appointed themselves keeper of the kit cupboard.
Buy on Amazon
