Palazzetto Eucherio Sanvitale: A Renaissance Palace in Parma
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Milan
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page8 sections
History
Palazzetto Eucherio Sanvitale is a small Renaissance palace in Parma, Italy, built around the turn of the sixteenth century for the Humiliati, a medieval Italian religious order whose communities combined religious life with manual work and charitable activity. It stands in what is now Parco Ducale and became important for its architecture and surviving sixteenth-century painting.
Humiliati and Sanvitale ownership
The Humiliati friars of the monastery of San Michele in Bosco commissioned the building. It was later acquired by Scipione Dalla Rosa, and in 1526 Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale, Count of Fontanellato, purchased it. Gian Galeazzo transferred the palace to his son Eucherio Sanvitale in 1547. Eucherio was later elected bishop of Viviers and moved to France.
On 19 March 1561, Eucherio ceded the casino and its surrounding land to Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, for 2,000 gold scudi. At that time, the property was separate from the ducal park. Its alternative names, Casino di Codiponte and Casino degli Umiliati, reflect earlier associations with the building and its religious founders.
Garden residence and later recovery
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the building became the residence of Nicolas Oranger, the gardener who held the title “Governor of the Garden.” Eighteenth-century maps identify it as the “Maison du Jardinier,” or “Gardener’s House.” In 1840, Duchess Marie Louise of Austria ordered several rooms to be inserted between the southern turrets, creating a complete upper storey.
A major recovery and radical renovation in 1975 brought the interior frescoes to light. The work, carried out by Silvia Baroni and Camillo Tarozzi, followed a period when the palace was described as abandoned and drew attention to its architectural and painted decoration. The Municipality of Parma owns the building, which is used as an exhibition venue.
Remains
The palace has modest dimensions and an H-shaped plan organized around four corner turrets. Two walkable loggias connect the turrets, each formed by five arches resting on Tuscan-order columns, a plain classical type with a simple shaft and capital. Above the entrances are two carved inscriptions. The principal entrance bears DII FACIENTES ADIUVANT, while the entrance on the opposite side bears DII BONA LABORANTIBUS VENDUNT. The building is traditionally attributed to Giorgio da Erba and Gian Francesco d’Agrate.
Interior arrangement and painted rooms
The interior is arranged around a large through-hall, with smaller rooms opening from its four corners. This plan retains the character of a medieval fortified house. Large areas of stucco added during the 1975 restoration altered the decoration of the hall. Two rooms contain umbrella vaults, whose curved surfaces radiate into ribbed, canopy-like forms. Each vault has 16 concentric ribs, arranged as four ribs on each side, a design understood as an alternative representation of the sky. Cesare Baglioni, an Italian painter employed at the Farnese court from 1574, frescoed the vaults, and the paintings were uncovered during the 1975 recovery.
Sala del Pergolato
The Sala del Pergolato, or Pergola Room, is painted as an open-air setting beneath a pergola and clear sky. Large, realistic trees fill the four corners of the walls, while the pergola rises from them across the ceiling.
Room with the velarium
A second room contains a velarium, a canopy-like decorative scheme, with coloured bands following the alternating ribs of the umbrella vault. Cameos and transparent spheres embellish the bands. The surrounding decoration includes female figures, seascapes, and mountainous landscapes treated in a Flemish manner, together with imaginary amphorae, fish, birds, and floral ornaments.
A lunette, meaning a semicircular or segmental wall or ceiling area, contains a fresco attributed to Parmigianino, the painter Francesco Mazzola. A niche in the same room holds a Madonna in prayer with the Child. The work dates from before 1524 and is attributed to Parmigianino because its execution technique resembles that of his early works before his journey to Rome. Additional loggias in the room are decorated with vases, flowers, natural landscapes, and woods.
Southeast turret chapel
The southeast turret contains a small chapel painted entirely in oil directly on the walls rather than in fresco. Its scenes portray the Birth of the Virgin, the Presentation in the Temple, the Marriage of the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Adoration of the Shepherds, and the Adoration of the Magi. The chapel was decorated later than the rest of the palace, and its paintings are attributed to Paolo Piazza.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the chapel served as a place of spiritual retreat for Ranuccio I Farnese, a later duke of Parma and Piacenza from the Farnese ruling family who was devoted to the Franciscan order.
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