Palazzo del Drago

Palazzo del Drago, originally Palazzo Crispo, was built for Cardinal Tiberio Crispo in two campaigns between 1533 and 1561. Its fortress-like structure incorporates loggias, salons, terraces and frescoed rooms attributed to Prospero Fontana and his workshop.

Why it matters

The palace is a major sixteenth-century residence in Bolsena's northern borgo, linked to the Rocca Monaldeschi by ramps, vaults and stairways. Its design combines defensive massing with features of a signorial residence. The palace remained within the founding family's orbit until it passed by marriage to the del Drago family in the nineteenth century.

What to notice

The first building campaign, completed by 1544, runs along Via delle Piagge on suspended rooms. Its four-ramp staircase was praised by Giorgio Vasari in his life of sculptor Simone Mosca, who worked here with Raffaello da Montelupo. The Sala Grande, completed in 1542 for council meetings, bears Crispo's name on its architraves. The first-floor Loggia Paolina has a painted wooden ceiling centred on the papal arms and six medallions with Farnese lilies, added after Paul III's visit. The second campaign produced the Torrazzo wing in red stone from the Poggio Restaldo quarry and a spiral stair ending in a triangular Serlian loggia. Frescoes from 1559–62, attributed to Prospero Fontana and his workshop, decorate the halls: the Sala di Alessandro Magno, the Bacchanal room, the religious Stanzino di Mosè and the Sala dei Giudizi.

Context and history

Tiberio Crispo rose through Farnese patronage to govern Bolsena and later held castellan posts in Rome. His two governorships correspond to the palace's two building campaigns. When townspeople removed him from office in 1562, decoration stopped, leaving the frescoed rooms unfinished. The palace later passed to the Spada Veralli Potenziani family. In 1894, the marriage of Ferdinando del Drago and Maria Angelica Spada Veralli brought it to the del Drago family. The American artist Cy Twombly worked at the palace in summer 1969, painting his fourteen-canvas Bolsena series in response to the Apollo 11 summer.