Palazzo Bonacossi

Palazzo Bonacossi has served as an exile's house favoured by Borso d'Este, an Este residence, cavalry barracks and a bomb-damaged shelter. It later became the headquarters for Ferrara's civic museums.

Why it matters

Begun in 1469, when Borso d'Este granted the site to Diotisalvi Neroni, a Florentine exile, the palace keeps the austere brick face and terracotta portal of the early Renaissance, with a crenellated tower above. Its story then tracks Ferrara's own: enlarged for Gurone d'Este in 1535 with a courtyard designed by Girolamo da Carpi, bought in 1572 by Francesco d'Este, son of Alfonso I and Lucrezia Borgia, and passed in 1643 to the counts Bonacossi, who gave it their name and its baroque windows, balconies and interior decorations.

What to notice

The architecture layers a fifteenth-century portal and tower with seventeenth-century window frames. The 1572 purchase tied the palace into the Este pleasure quarter: courtyard loggias connected it with the nearby Palazzina di Marfisa d'Este, and a private passage on the south front ran toward Palazzo Schifanoia. A municipal plaque records the 1911 purchase, when the city installed the Lancieri d'Aosta cavalry. Bombing on 28 January 1944 left scars that decades of use deepened before the 1987 restoration.

Context and history

The palace houses the civic museums' ancient-art department, library and photo library. Ground-floor rooms have hosted conferences and temporary exhibitions associated with the Musei Civici.