Palazzo Ancini Palazzo Ancini is located in the heart of Reggio Emilia, in via Farini 1.
Historical notes
Palazzo Ancini is located in the heart of Reggio Emilia, on Via Farini, and is one of the most elegant noble residences in the historic center. Its origins date back to the 16th century, when the building belonged to the Ruggieri family. Over the following centuries, it changed hands several times: to the Pegoletti family in 1659, to the Sormani Counts in 1766, and finally to the Ancini Counts in 1821, from whom it took its current name. Upon the death of Count Giovanni Ancini in 1887, the palace was donated to the Congregazione di Carità, marking the transition from private use to a public function that continues to define its history today.
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Between 1924 and 1930, the building underwent a major restoration and aesthetic redesign by professor and architect Luigi Bertolini. At a time when eclectic historical tastes intertwined with the civic needs of the modern city, Bertolini reinterpreted the façade in a Mannerist and Baroque style, giving the building the solemn and decorative appearance that still distinguishes it today. The building thus became a symbol of continuity between the aristocratic memory of Reggio Emilia and the new bourgeois and institutional identity of the twentieth century.
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Architecture
The main façade, overlooking Via Farini, expresses the restraint and elegance of a Renaissance composition enriched by twentieth-century additions.
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The lower part of the building retains its original use as commercial spaces, while the upper floors maintain their noble layout with a balanced rhythm of openings and cornices. At the rear and on the Via Don Minzoni side, the 20th-century renovation incorporates similar architectural motifs, blending the various construction phases into a coherent whole.
Passing through the portal, one enters two internal courtyards, separated by a double Ionic colonnade that recalls the classical purity of the late Renaissance. The first courtyard, known as the Courtyard of Honor, is embellished with blind arches, trompe-l’oeil decorations, and infilled windows that simulate openings and reliefs, in a refined illusionistic play of solids and voids.
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Interiors
The main staircase leads to the piano nobile, where the palace’s most representative aspect unfolds. The eighteenth-century staircase retains later pictorial decorations: in 1920, the Reggio Emilia artist Anselmo Govi painted a large frescoed ceiling dedicated to Charity, in homage to the building’s new purpose as the headquarters of the charitable Congregation.
Leggi tutto The upper rooms retain evidence of the rich 18th-century decoration: niches above doorways with allegorical sculptures, stucco, and ornamental frames that interact with more modern elements. In some southeast rooms, polychrome wooden beams and geometric-patterned decorations dating back to the 16th century are visible, revealing the residence’s centuries-old stratification. Overall, Palazzo Ancini combines the restraint of a Renaissance palace with Baroque and Neo-Mannerist ornamental taste, conveying a coherent and vibrant image of Reggio’s architectural history. Today, it houses municipal offices and public functions, but it continues to be perceived as a symbolic place in the city: a palimpsest of memories, art, and civilization that narrates, through its stones, the continuity of urban life between past and present. Riduci