House of Biagio Rossetti (Casa di Biagio Rossetti)

In 1490, having spent seven years in the service of Ercole I d’Este without receiving adequate compensation, Biagio Rossetti asked to be granted as compensation the materials necessary for the construction of a house for his own use. The building was accessible by 1498 and was finished by 1502, when Biagio moved there from his previous home in the district of Santa Maria in Vado. In 1504, the brothers Fino and Bernardino Marsili, who were painters, prepared the list of works carried out in the Rossetti house, for which they were to be paid and of which nothing has remained. This document provides information on elements that have now disappeared, notably the existence of a loggia overlooking the courtyard and a crenellated crowning along Via della Ghiara. The use of the term “palazzo” to define the building gives us an idea of its original grandeur and extent, confirmed by the widespread use of fresco decorations. As it is learn from later documents, the body of the building containing the loggia was located to the west, directly connected with the present “house” and on the upper floor housed various rooms; to the east there were service annexes; in depth, with the open spaces of courtyard and orchard, the property reached the current Via Cantarana. On the façade, the refined moulded terracotta decorations of the portal and the upper floor windows, with mouldings and marine zoomorphic elements drawn from the classical repertoire, are original; the cornice was instead made in 1911 by the Galeotti kiln, replacing the previous crowning, copying a design common in Renaissance Ferrara.