Piazza Verdi (as in the composer Gieuseppi Verdi) in Bologna is UB’s equivalent of Washington Square at NYU. They have this ritual abuse of students receiving their Ph.D. degree where they wear a laurel wreath and dress (or cross-dress or partially dress) with a ribbon of a different color depending on the field you’re in (white for humanities, red for medicine, etc.). The poor graduate is accompanied through the streets by a rowdy group of friends chanting "Dottore, Dottore!" while they all get smashed.
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