The history of this building, whose construction dates back to 1464 and is the work of the architect Pietro Benvenuto degli Ordini, is closely bound up with that of the family of Teofilo Calcagnini, a gentleman and secretary at the Este court. It was to him that Duke Borso d’Este, at Christmas 1465, donated the palace with its appurtenances, including an inn with lodgings. Around the palace there also stretched a wooded park, a kitchen garden and extensive cultivated estates.
In the sixteenth century the family hosted in their residence the activities of the noble members of the Accademia dei Filareti, who came here to hold their meetings, at times enlivened by hunting parties.
From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the complex was less and less frequented by its owners, who from 1684 began to lease out the estate in order to cope with financial difficulties.
The palace was later sold in 1818 to Count Luigi Gulinelli, under whose ownership work began that led to the fifteenth-century building being raised by one storey, given a square ground plan and provided with stables for the breeding of racehorses.
The complex remained in this form until 1944, when aerial bombardments during the Second World War destroyed much of it.
Today the main block is dominated by the great tower (al turòn), with its Ghibelline battlements; through the round-arched entrance portal one enters the inner courtyard, originally paved with herringbone-laid terracotta bricks.
Since 1990 the palace has been owned by the Municipality of Argenta. Over the last decade major works have strengthened the structure, including the renewal of the roofs, the reopening of blocked-up windows and the consolidation of the grand staircase leading up to the tower. In addition, the basic layout of the park, extending over more than three hectares, has been completed; it is now crossed by a pedestrian and cycle path flanked by a double row of lime trees, which form a leafy backdrop to the building.
A Literary Gathering
“In a mild autumn in the early sixteenth century, a company of young and brilliant representatives of Ferrara’s intellectual nobility rides at a slow pace along the road that leads south from the city towards Argenta. Their destination is the Delizia of Benvignante. The host awaiting the cheerful company on its way is Teofilo’s son, Borso. On the occasion of the grape harvest festival, the master of Benvignante has asked his cousin Celio to bring with him «amicos aliquos meos bene eruditos feliciterque ingeniatos» (‘a few friends of good learning and lively intelligence’).
And so some of the most celebrated writers and intellectuals of Este Ferrara arrange to meet there, among them Mario Equicola, Lilio Gregorio Giraldi and — indeed — Ludovico Ariosto. Alongside them we find figures who may be less renowned today but were greatly esteemed at the time: Daniele Fini — son of the better-known Fino Fini — accountant and chancellor of the Studio of Ferrara, but also a poet of some stature; ‘Gilinus’, Ghilino Ghilini, ducal administrator, jurist, and later bishop of Comacchio; ‘Azaiolus’, that is Pier Antonio Acciaiuoli, ducal chancellor and close friend of Ariosto. To these is added a combative Greek named ‘Demetrius’, who can with fair certainty be identified as Demetrios Moschos, teacher of Greek, copyist and man of letters active between Venice, Ferrara and Mantua…”
From the introduction by Elisa Curti to Equitatio ad Herculem secundum Estensem ducem Ferrarie quartum by Celio Calcagnini, dated to around the first decade of the sixteenth century – Ferrara Arte Edizioni, 2021.