Renaissance buildings: palaces and churches

The Cathedral began to be built in the 12th century in the Romanesque style, to which there were later added features typical of Gothic architecture, such as the rose windows on the façade, grouped in pointed trefoil openings, and the elements in the upper part of the projecting porch (protiro). The bell tower, whose design is attributed by some sources to Leon Battista Alberti, is an early example of Renaissance architecture in northern Italy. The brick apse is the result of an intervention by Biagio Rossetti at the end of the 15th century, intended to harmonise this central pole of the city’s urban structure with the expansion plan of which he was the author.

On the south side of the building, sheltered by the row of shops that still house trading activities today, are the marble inscriptions recording the municipal statute of 13 May 1173.

Commissioned by Niccolò II d’Este in response to a violent popular uprising and entrusted to the architect Bartolino Ploti da Novara around 1385, the Castle occupied an area immediately inside the northern walls, in a position that enabled it both to support the city’s defensive system against external attack and to act as an instrument for suppressing internal revolts. The construction incorporated the pre-existing Rocca dei Leoni and took on the form of a fortress with four corner towers linked by lower wings.

From 1476 onwards, the building became the permanent residence of the Este court, and during the reigns of Alfonso I and Ercole II it gradually took on the appearance of a magnificent aristocratic residence, thanks to the architectural transformation carried out by Girolamo da Carpi, who refined its medieval forms and raised all the towers and the curtain wall by one storey.

The palace has its origins in the residence of the Adelardi family, whom the Este replaced at the head of the city from 1189. Developing from the medieval nucleus known as the Corte Vecchia, the residential complex grew over the centuries by the addition of new wings and successive modernisations, as was generally the case with the great urban palaces of the age of the signorie. It was Duke Ercole I who took particular care over its overall remodelling, with unceasing works that led to the composition of the complex around a large ducal courtyard (today Piazza Municipale) and a secret garden – that is, a private space for the lord – later transformed into the Giardino delle Duchesse, which still survives, albeit profoundly altered.
The whole was linked to the Castle by the Via Coperta, in which Alfonso I in 1505 created the famous Camerini d’Alabastro (Alabaster Rooms), decorated with works by some of the most celebrated artists of the day, and the stone balcony that can still be seen on the exterior.

Merchant’s residence (c. 1440) with late Gothic decorative schemes; restored and reopened in 2025.
Built from around 1440 through the amalgamation of three pre-existing buildings, it was the house of Giovanni Romei, a wealthy merchant and banker associated with the Este family. Thanks to its well-preserved 15th-century structure, which can still be clearly read, and to its precious interior decorative schemes, it constitutes the most significant surviving example of a noble residence dating from before the Addizione Erculea.

Founded around 1385 at the behest of Alberto V d’Este, the building underwent various extensions and remodellings which, in the second half of the 15th century, transformed it into the “jewel” among the Este Delizie, housing the celebrated Hall of the Months (Salone dei Mesi), designed by the court humanist and astrologer Pellegrino Prisciani together with Duke Borso and decorated by a team of painters that included Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de’ Roberti.

The building campaign, which lasted from 1466 to 1471, was directed by the ducal engineer Pietro degli Ordini; working under him, as a mason, was Biagio Rossetti, documented here for the first time on a building site.

Overall design by Biagio Rossetti (1495–1504).
The fulcrum of the palace is the cortile d’onore (courtyard of honour), completed on only two sides and characterised by the distinctive corner piers with paired columns. It is adorned with a double loggia embellished with stone sculptural decoration, probably the work of Gabriele Frisoni, to whom both the monumental marble staircase and the rooms on the principal floor are attributed. Today the palace houses the National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara and contains a vast collection of Etruscan and Greek artefacts.

The generative centre of the new expansion. According to Bruno Zevi’s interpretation, the entire design of the crossroads is due to Biagio Rossetti, who assigned to each building a clearly defined and distinct architectural “weight”, in order to make them all stand out simultaneously yet individually.

Commissioned in 1493 by Sigismondo d’Este and designed by Biagio Rossetti, the palace, the palace is emblematic of the architect’s intent to privilege a perspectival view of the whole rather than to emphasise the frontal view of the façade. Its famous rusticated marble cladding is in fact designed to exalt the palace’s corner position – best appreciated from a diagonal viewpoint – and thus to enhance the entire intersection.

Palazzo dei Diamanti was intermittently inhabited by members of the Este family until the Devolution of Ferrara to the Holy See in 1598. In 1641 it was sold by Francesco I d’Este, nephew and successor of Cesare d’Este, to the Villa family, and since 1842 it has belonged to the Municipality of Ferrara. Today the ground floor houses the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, a venue for major international exhibitions organised by Ferrara Arte, while the principal floor is home to the National Picture Gallery.

Borso d’Este laid the foundation stone of the Carthusian (Certosino) monastery extra moenia, where his tomb still lies. The complex was brought within the line of the city walls with the Addizione of Ercole I. The church of San Cristoforo is attributed to Biagio Rossetti and is considered one of the most interesting works of the Renaissance in Ferrara.Following the suppression of religious orders in the Napoleonic era, the complex was used as barracks; it was later acquired by the Municipality and designated to house the city cemetery. The enlargement project drawn up by Ferdinando Canonici in the mid-19th century and completed in the following century transformed the complex into a monumental certosa, with the scenographic backdrop of two great curving colonnades embracing the lawn in front of the church.

Founded by the Franciscans around the 13th century and reshaped from 1494 onwards under the direction of Biagio Rossetti. Notarial documents record the presence of a small Franciscan church on the site of the present convent as early as 1232. In 1341 construction began on a much larger church on a site close to the previous one.
From the time of Obizzo III (d. 1352) the 14th-century church was chosen as the Este burial place, until the construction of Santa Maria degli Angeli (1403–1440), commissioned by Nicolò III. The foundation stone of the present church of San Francesco was laid on 3 August 1494 with the support of Ercole I. Heavily damaged by the earthquake of 1570 and subject to further collapses in the 19th century, the building today constitutes an intriguing palimpsest that preserves only part of its original appearance.

Of very ancient origin, the church – famous for the miracle of the Blood of Christ in 1171 – was rebuilt from 1494 onwards, probably to a design by Biagio Rossetti, with a Latin-cross ground plan.
In 1594 Alfonso II d’Este commissioned the ducal architect Alessandro Balbi to construct the small chapel that still houses the little vault (volticina) containing the relic of Christ’s Blood, allowing the faithful to venerate it at close quarters by means of two side staircases leading up to a gallery.
The earthquake of 1570 and collapses in the 19th century damaged the church and altered part of its configuration. The paintings in the interior date mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, although restoration work in the 1990s brought to light fragments of the original decorative scheme.

The history of the Basilica of San Giorgio is inextricably linked to the birth of Ferrara. Between the 7th and 8th centuries the local episcopal see was transferred from the ancient Roman settlement of Voghenza – to the south-east of the present city – to Borgo San Giorgio, on the right bank of the Po di Volano, which thus became the first nucleus of the urban settlement.
The Basilica was the Cathedral of Ferrara until 1135, when the episcopal see was moved to the other bank of the Po, around the Byzantine castrum, in what is now the Cathedral, likewise dedicated to Saint George Martyr.
In 1473 Biagio Rossetti remodelled and extended the spaces of the Basilica to adapt them to the needs of the Olivetan monks, to whom Nicolò III d’Este had entrusted the complex. Beside the Basilica rises the bell tower, attributed to Biagio Rossetti and perfectly consistent, in stylistic terms, with the language of the Ferrarese architect. Its construction appears to have been completed by 1485, the date recorded on an inscription set into one of the walls. At the foot of the bell tower lies the tomb of Cosmè Tura.
In 1581 an intervention by Alberto Schiatti further modified the church’s structure, while the present façade was built in the 18th century to a design by Andrea Ferreri.