The Reggia di Belriguardo, built in 1435 at the behest of Marquis Niccolò III d’Este to designs by Giovanni da Siena, was one of the most splendid Este Delizie of the Ferrarese court. Inspired by Vitruvian principles of the villa all’antica, it was distinguished by its vast frescoed halls and by splendid Italian-style gardens, which extended over more than thirty hectares.
During the summer months the court moved to Belriguardo, making it the official seat of the ducal government: an unprecedented choice at the time, anticipating practices that would only become common elsewhere in Europe centuries later. Here the dukes Borso, Ercole and Alfonso received distinguished guests, who marvelled at the elegance of the residence.
The complex comprised two arcaded courtyards, linked by a two-storey central block and surrounded by vineyards, fountains, water basins and functional structures such as pergolas and productive gardens. The entrance was marked by a majestic tower and a large fishpond fed by the River Sandalo: beyond it one entered the first courtyard, which housed the administrative offices, while the second contained the richly decorated residential quarters. Among the most prized works were Ercole de’ Roberti’s frescoes of the story of Psyche and those in the ducal chapel by Cosmè Tura.
Contemporary accounts recount memorable episodes: Ludovico il Moro invited his wife to join him there to admire the beauties of Belriguardo; Vincenzo Gonzaga went there to swim in the great fishpond, where mock naval battles were staged. The building was designed so as to afford the finest views of sunrise and sunset from the rooms in the entrance tower. The hydraulic system that supplied the gardens, connected to the River Sandalo, was so ingenious that it was taken up among the Este heraldic devices.
This magnificent setting inspired poets such as Ariosto, Tasso and Guarini, who spent long periods there. The lavish banquets, described by the court steward Cristoforo da Messisbugo, required the work of hundreds of artisans and peasants, indispensable to the functioning of court life.
After the Devolution of 1598, when the Este court moved to Modena and Reggio, Belriguardo – an allodial possession of the dukes – went into rapid decline: the halls were turned into stables and granaries, the loggias were adapted with rustic piers, and the spaces were occupied by farming families, giving rise to a kind of rural “condominium” that survived through to the present day.
Today the overall perimeter of the palace is preserved, together with the two inner courtyards and the entrance tower, reduced in height and preceded by a sixteenth-century porch. The ground floor of the transverse block dividing the two courts can still be made out, as can the Sala della Vigna, overlooking the second courtyard and adorned with sixteenth-century frescoes of caryatids and imaginary landscapes, the work of Dosso and Battista Dossi, Garofalo, Girolamo and Tommaso da Carpi, Biagio Pupini, Camillo Filippini and Iacopo da Faenza. Of the fifteenth-century decoration, precious fragments remain, including a terracotta arch moulding with motifs of pods, beads, small leaves and cornucopias. One wing of the residence now houses the Belriguardo Civic Museum, which also contains archaeological finds from the Voghenza necropolis.
