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Palazzo Massari
The museums at Palazzo Massari are closed for restoration work.
You can access the collections online to discover the works and history of Ferrara art from the 19th century to contemporary times.
The museums at Palazzo Massari are closed for restoration work.
HISTORY
Palazzo Massari was built starting in the last decade of the 16th century, at the behest of Count Onofrio Bevilacqua, between the ancient Piazza Nova, now Ariostea, and the Angeli crossroads, the fulcrum of the famous Addizione Erculea designed by urban planner Biagio Rossetti at the end of the 15th century. During the last thirty years of the 18th century the building was expanded with the construction of the Palazzina Bianca, also called the Palazzina dei Cavalieri di Malta.
After several decades of neglect and spoliation following the Napoleonic conquests and the waning of the Bevilacqua fortunes in the aftermath of Italian Unification, the palace became the property of the Massari family. Sold by the heirs to the Municipality of Ferrara, it has housed the Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea since 1975.
Following the 2012 earthquake, an ambitious restoration project was launched that includes the museum redevelopment of the palace, with the aim of offering the public a new and expanded route through the modern art collections – Museum of the Nineteenth Century, Museo Giovanni Boldini, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Filippo de Pisis” – accompanied by a service hub.
In its present arrangement, the complex consists of two contiguous buildings that are clearly distinguishable from the outside: the main body in late 16th-century style stands out for the warm tone of the terracotta brick, while the Palazzina Bianca in neoclassical style owes its name to its light-colored surfaces. In contrast, the interior rooms on the main floor present a unified character in the elegant sequence of sumptuously decorated rooms modeled after French royal palaces. In particular, the Renaissance wing preserves the frescoed ceilings completed shortly before 1690 by two Ferrara pupils of Carlo Cignani, Maurelio Scannavini and Giacomo Parolini, with the help of masters of the Bolognese quadraturist school, while in the neoclassical wing the rich ornamentation of the hall of stuccoes and the hall of Ganymede frescoed in the early 19th century by the Bolognese Giuseppe Santi stand out. Equally sumptuous is the path that leads from the palace’s entrance hall via a monumental staircase to the large hall of honor, where a fragment of a fresco by the school of Guido Reni with Calaide and Zete hunting the Harpies..
the garden and outbuildings
The green area attached to Palazzo Massari was, in the sixteenth century, a fund owned by the Bevilacqua family, on which Count Onofrio had the main nucleus of the palace erected. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, in conjunction with the expansion of the building, the intervention of Ferrara architect Luigi Cosimo Bertelli transformed the back gardens into a park with Italian gardens at the bottom of which the neoclassical Coffee house building was erected. The twin buildings of the stables and carriage house were erected adjacent to the palace.
In the aftermath of the Unification of Italy, the complex passed into the hands of the Massari counts, who ordered the transformation of the park into an English garden. Since 1936, it has been owned by the Municipality of Ferrara and a large part of it has been used as a public park, while the area adjacent to the main building has remained the property of the Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.
Since the late 1970s, the two annexes have hosted the exhibition programming of the Contemporary Art Pavilion and the performance activities of the Multipurpose Hall, while the garden houses a collection of contemporary sculpture works donated mostly by artists who have exhibited at Palazzo dei Diamanti or Palazzo Massari.
In May 2024, the Spazio Antonioni in the rooms of the former PAC redesigned according to a fluid and dynamic architectural design that allows people to enjoy the very rich heritage of objects, documents and works of the great Ferrarese filmmaker.
THE COLLECTIONS.
The May 2012 earthquake that rendered Palazzo Massari unusable and forced its disassembly is the most recent chapter in a history that began in 1836, with the founding of the Civic Art Gallery. This institution, housed since 1842 at Palazzo dei Diamanti, brought together the collections of ancient art and the modern picture gallery according to an Enlightenment and neoclassical project, inspired by the need to protect works of art and make them accessible for educational and cultural purposes.
During the nineteenth century, the revived municipal pride is reflected as much in the production of artists as in the policy of acquisitions and bequests of “modern” works, in which the celebratory subjects of the Este past recur alongside other fortunate nineteenth-century genres such as portraiture and sacred themes, as revealed, for example, by the paintings of Gaetano Turchi and Giovanni Pagliarini. With the twentieth century, the slow opening to the novelties introduced by Impressionism and Symbolism favored the entry into the collections of works by artists of the latest generations, such as Previati, Mentessi, Pisa and, in particular, Boldini. In fact, in 1935, thanks to a bequest from his widow, the first nucleus of the museum dedicated to this celebrated interpreter of Belle Epoque portraiture was established. After World War II, through acquisitions and bequests, an important collection of works by Melli, Funi and De Pisis was established, reflecting their original path between futurism metaphysical painting and return to order. To De Pisis, in particular, the twentieth-century collections are named after the donation of masterpieces from the Malabotta collection. A fundamental increase in the collections is due to the generous donations of the Giuseppe Pianori Foundation.
Meanwhile, in 1958 the collections of ancient and modern art were separated: the former became state property, while the latter found a home at Palazzo Massari. It was here that the Museum of the Nineteenth Century, Museo Giovanni Boldini and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Filippo de Pisis” were set up between 1996 and 1998, with the order that was preserved until May 2012.