Stendhal

(1826) Often, at two o'clock in the morning, returning to my lodgings in Bologna, under these long porticoes, I would stop, oppressed by happiness, and say to myself: How beautiful it is! And I would say over nothing at all: "My God! How glad I am to have come to Italy!"

(1816) Bologna offers that mixture of passion and fertility of imagination which, in my opinion, is necessary to reach the perfection of the soul

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

(1716) climbed the tower to console myself in the open air. Splendid view! To the North one can see the hills of Padua, then the Swiss, Tyrolean and Friulian Alps, all the northern chain still in the mist. To the West, an unblocked horizon, from which only the towers of Modena rise. To The East, a uniform plain reaching to the Adriatic visible at the rising of the sun. To the South, the first hills of the Apennines, populated with churches, palaces and villas

Ernest Hemingway

(1950) But in this country, if you want ever want to know a really tough town where they eat wonderful too, go to Bologna