This is a preview of the content in our Bologna + Modena Art & Culture app. Get the app to:
  • Read offline
  • Remove ads
  • Access all content
  • Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
  • Build a list of your own favourites
  • Search the contents with full-text search functionality
  • ... and more!
iOS App Store Google Play

Palazzina della Viola

Renaissance Pleasure Palace

Palazzina della VIola

This pretty little pleasure dome, with loggias on three sides, was built in 1497 for Annibale, the son of Giovanni II Bentivoglio, as his 'little house of secret and solitary pleasures' according to the court poet Sabadino degli Arienti.

After the fall of the Bentivoglio clan, the once sumptuous gardens became the Orto Botanico (there was once a splendid orangerie, but it was bombed into oblivion in the Second World War) and the Palazzina della Viola was purchased by Cardinal Bonifacio Ferrerio to serve as a college for Piedmontese students at the University.

We can only imagine what the original frescoes were like, the ones that tickled Annibale's secret pleasures. The current ones were commissioned by the Cardinal: mythological scenes in the galleries by Innocenzo da Imola, a follower of Raphael; a ceiling attributed to Amico Aspertini, and first floor scenes on the lives of Pope Sylvester and Emperor Constantine by Prospero Fontana, all of which have been recently restored.

After the suppression of the College in 1797, the Palazzina della Viola became part of the Faculty of Agriculture. In today it is the seat of International Relations Office of the University of Bologna.

Practical Info Practical Info icon

Via Filippo Re 2

Hours Not open to the public, although you can see it from the outside.

Renaissance Art and Architecture

Places in Bologna

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Image by mibet, Wikimapia