This paper focuses on the origins of the baronial palaces to the south of Rome in the early fourteenth century, looking atexemplary cases which are based on models commissioned by the House of Anjou (see the residences of Charles I of Anjouin Mola di Bari and Villanova di Ostuni, perfectly documented in the registry of the Curia regia) and which found in thepatronage of Roffredo Caetani their diffusion to the northern territories of the Kingdom in the bordering Pontifical region of Marittima.

Conferenza tenuta il 1 giugno 1989. Al testo sono state apportate lievi modificazioni con aggiunta delle note.

From Giovanni Battista Torri to Pietro Tomba: the «noble design» of Palazzo Mazzolani in Faenza The Faentine palace of the Mazzolani counts, an old Romagnol family resident in Faenza since the sixteenth century, is an extraordinary instance of building construction in the late seventeenth–century Romagna region. The discovery of numerous related documents in the Archivio di Stato di Ravenna has enabled the reconstruction of its architectural history as well as our gaining awareness, through the numerous unpublished project drawings (ground plans and preparatory studies of the architectural, painted and sculpted decoration) of the cultural value of this exemplar of provincial “Roman” architecture. It has thus been possible to assign the building design to the Bolognese architect Giovanni Battista Torri (1637–1706) and his studio (Carlo Perti), and its execution to a Ticino workforce (Morelli, Trifogli and others). An interpretation of the derivation of the design from models (palaces) in the capital is proposed not only with style comparisons — especially though not exclusively the classicizing works of Orazio Torriani and Domenico Paganelli — but also though the Mazzolani’s familial relations with important clans present in Rome (Spada and Ginnasi). Outstanding among the decorative works in the palace are those of the Bolognese stuccoers Giuseppe Maria Tinti and Antonio Martinetti from the Ticino, the Friuli stonemason Girolamo Bertos and the many painters, including Ercole Gaetano Bertuzzi. Briefly treated is the Mazzolani’s rich collection of works of art (now dispersed), while documentation is also presented both for the neoclassical–style decoration executed according to Pietro Tomba’s designs and for paintings by Tommaso Minardi.

Nel 1585 Vespasiano Gonzaga duca di Sabbioneta commissionò a Bernardino Campi una copia dei dodici ritratti dei Cesari (dipinti da Tiziano Vecellio) da collocare nella Sala degli Imperatori nel suo palazzo. Campi aveva già realizzato cinque copie: questa è la sesta dipinta da lui. La fortunata serie fu realizzata per il gusto antiquario del duca, che possedeva nella sua biblioteca il volume "De vita caesarum" di Svetonio, e soprattutto per esaltare la Casata regnante degli Asburgo, a cui fin dall'infanzia egli era legato. Il volume, curato insieme a Gianluca Bocchi, nasce in occasione del riallestimento della Sala degli Imperatori di Palazzo Ducale con copie su tela dei dipinti originali, confiscati nel 1774 e dispersi.