Palazzo Massari - Musei dell'Ottocento, Boldini e De Pisis

Ferrara's Palazzo Massari houses the city's nineteenth- and twentieth-century art collections, including museums devoted to Giovanni Boldini and Filippo de Pisis.

Why it matters

The palace brings together Ferrara's nineteenth-century art and its transition into modernism. Its three principal collections—the Museo dell'Ottocento, Museo Giovanni Boldini and Museo d'arte moderna e contemporanea Filippo de Pisis—trace changing artistic currents from the nineteenth century to the post-war period. Boldini's collection includes paintings, works on paper, letters and furnishings from his Paris studio.

What to notice

The Boldini collection spans the artist's Macchiaioli years in Florence, his Paris period and the society portraits that made him famous. The nineteenth-century galleries include Ferrarese painters such as Gaetano Turchi and Giovanni Pagliarini, alongside works by Previati, Mentessi and Pisa. The modern collection includes de Pisis and works by Melli and Funi. Palazzo Massari also preserves ceiling frescoes by Maurelio Scannavini and Giacomo Parolini, with a neoclassical wing decorated by Giuseppe Santi.

Context and history

Ferrara's municipal Pinacoteca was founded in 1836 and moved to Palazzo dei Diamanti in 1842. In 1958 the modern collection moved to Palazzo Massari. The palace grew from the late sixteenth century and later took its name from the Massari family. After the 2012 earthquake, restoration work addressed the palace and the adjacent Palazzina dei Cavalieri di Malta. The gardens, reshaped in the eighteenth century and made municipal property in 1936, remain part of the complex. The former contemporary-art pavilion reopened in 2024 as Spazio Antonioni.