Galleria Parmeggiani

The Parmeggiani Gallery in Reggio Emilia preserves the collection and distinctive house-museum setting created by Luigi Parmeggiani. Built between 1925 and 1928, the Gothic-Renaissance-inspired palace brings together paintings, textiles, arms and decorative objects assembled from several nineteenth-century collections.

Why it matters

Parmeggiani shaped the palace around his collection, which drew on the works of painter-collectors Ignacio Leon y Escosura and Cesare Detti, as well as objects associated with the Parisian Marcy workshop. The municipality describes the result as a house museum, preserving the arrangement in which the collector presented his holdings. Parmeggiani donated the gallery and collection to Reggio Emilia in 1932.

What to notice

The gallery's rooms are arranged by artistic school and material: European paintings, textiles, costumes, goldsmith work and arms. Other rooms feature paintings by Escosura and Detti. The central salon combines Italian paintings with furniture and ceramics beneath a skylight inspired by a Hellenistic house and the Paris galleries associated with Escosura and Marcy. A fifteenth-century portal from Valencia's Palazzo Mosen Sorell forms the palace entrance. The collection also includes the so-called falsi Marcy, antique-style objects made by the Marcy workshop.

Context and history

Parmeggiani commissioned engineer Ascanio Ferrari to build the palace in 1925; the project was completed in 1928. After the 1932 donation, the rooms retained their final arrangement. A restoration in 1988 deliberately preserved the house-museum setting, allowing the building to document the collector's taste alongside the objects he assembled.