Palazzo Milzetti - Museo Nazionale dell'Età Neoclassica in Romagna

Palazzo Milzetti in Faenza now houses the Museo Nazionale dell’età neoclassica in Romagna. Its Neoclassical interiors bring architecture, wall painting, stucco, sculpture and applied arts into a unified ensemble, with much of the decoration designed by Felice Giani.

Why it matters

Count Nicola Milzetti commissioned the transformation of the family palace around 1785. Giani began the decorative work in 1802, and payments continued until 1805, the date inscribed in the Gabinetto d’Amore. The Italian state acquired the building in 1973; it opened to the public in 1979 and has housed the national museum since 2001.

What to notice

Giani designed the decorative scheme. Antonio Trentanove and later Francesco and Giovan Battista Ballanti Graziani executed the stucco panels, while Gaetano Bertolani created painted ornament. Giani’s wall paintings use tempera rather than fresco. Giovanni Antonio Antolini completed the staircase and octagonal salone on the piano nobile between 1800 and 1801, opening a serliana onto the garden. The Gabinetto d’Amore bears the incised date 1805. The garden was remodelled in Romantic taste after 1818 and retains its rustic hameau.

Context and history

The Milzetti family acquired the property in the early seventeenth century. After the 1781 earthquake, Nicola Milzetti engaged the Faentine architect Giuseppe Pistocchi to transform the old Posta building and repair family houses. Following Pistocchi’s imprisonment in 1796, Giovanni Antonio Antolini continued the work for Nicola’s son Francesco. The palace was sold to Vincenzo Papiani in 1808 and passed to Countess Teresa Bertoni Rondinini in 1818, when the garden was extended. The state purchase in 1973 began its modern public chapter.