Palazzo de Beaumont Bonelli: An Aristocratic Palace and Hypogeum in Taranto
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Ancient Greek, Kingdom of Naples, Roman, Spanish
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page14 sections
History
Palazzo de Beaumont Bonelli is a historic aristocratic palace in Taranto, Italy, built at the end of the seventeenth century over pre-existing underground spaces. Its hypogeum preserves physical evidence associated with several phases of Taranto’s development, from the city’s traditional Spartan foundation to the construction of the palace and its later use as a residence and cultural site.
Early underground history
Taranto was traditionally founded by the Spartans in 706 BC. The earliest cavities beneath the palace are attributed to quarrying for calcarenite, a soft limestone made largely from carbonate sand and fossil or shell fragments. This stone supplied material for the first buildings and fortifications of the city. The area later became known as the Fogge district, a name meaning the district of quarries.
The underground spaces were adapted for different purposes over the following centuries. Their successive remains relate to the early development of Taranto, its Greek period, medieval hydraulic works, and the seventeenth-century building above them. The precise date of the hypogeum’s formation and the sequence of its later development remain difficult to establish.
The de Beaumont Bonelli residence
The de Beaumont Bonelli family lived in the palace until the beginning of the twentieth century. After the family became extinct, the building was sold. The palace stands within Taranto’s old town, beside the Mar Grande waterfront, and its plan reflects the shape of the plot between Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and the former Via delle Fogge, now Via Paesiello.
Restoration and cultural use
In 2002, the Bellacicco family, the current owners, restored the central part of the principal residential floor and the hypogeum beneath it. The underground restoration lasted six years and was financed by the owners without public or private funding. Since 2015, the complex has permanently housed the Museo Spartano di Taranto, also called the Ipogeo Bellacicco. It is privately owned and managed, accommodates the Filonide Cultural Association, and is used for cultural and artistic events.
In 2007, the hypogeum received recognition as a cultural asset of national importance from the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. It is listed in the regional inventory of artificial cavities of Puglia as PU_CA 668 and is the only underground space in Taranto’s old town recorded by the Puglian Speleological Federation. The complex has also been the subject of university theses in Italy and the United States.
Remains
The hypogeum occupies approximately 700 square metres and consists of four rooms arranged across four descending levels. Heights range from 5 to 8 metres, while the lowest parts reach 16 metres below the street and approximately 4 metres below sea level. Centrally positioned within the old-town island, it forms a crossroads with other underground structures belonging to Taranto’s wider subterranean system.
Rooms and structural phases
Sala Etra
Sala Etra contains wall structures belonging to different periods and construction styles. At its southern end, walls from Taranto’s Magna Graecia period divide the hypogeum from the side facing the Mar Grande. Magna Graecia was the ancient Greek cultural zone of southern Italy, including the Greek settlements of the Italian peninsula.
The lateral walls include medieval opus incertum, masonry made from irregular stones set in mortar. Calcarenite blocks at the northeastern end are associated with Spartan quarrying for the earliest residential areas. Fossils embedded in these blocks indicate a geological age of approximately 175,000 years and show that the stone originally formed below sea level.
At the centre and toward the rear of the room, a three-arched structure and four reinforcing pillars support seventeenth-century barrel vaults. A barrel vault is a continuous curved vault formed by extending an arch along a length. These elements carry the aristocratic palace above.
Sala Falanto
Sala Falanto lies beside and parallel to Sala Etra. Metal grilles allow views toward lower remains, including a street from Taranto’s Magna Graecia period, a medieval water-collection system, and seventeenth-century conduits connected with the palace wells.
A passable tunnel on the southern side reaches the level of the Mar Grande. Probably medieval or late medieval, it contains a well-preserved water channel beneath its floor. The channel carries water collected in the hypogeum toward the sea. Stairs on the opposite side lead to the palace courtyard. The room also contains a fireplace made with blocks from the Magna Graecia period, now covered by modern ironwork.
Sala Falanto has walls built from calcarenite and opus incertum, together with a barrel vault made of soft carparo. Carparo is a local form of calcarenite traditionally used as building stone in the Taranto area.
Sala Filonide
Sala Filonide is set at right angles to Sala Etra and Sala Falanto. Its position follows the trapezoidal plan of the palace, whose sea-facing facade is narrow while the facade on Via Paesiello is considerably wider and contains the principal entrance portal. The room is the largest and highest in the hypogeum, reaching 8 metres.
Layers of calcarenite and opus incertum in its walls show the superimposition of different historical periods. The room contains the hypogeum’s only identified Roman trace, a column supporting a calcarenite block near one of six wells. Fossil remains are also embedded in calcarenite blocks along the walls and on the southeastern side.
At the northwestern end, stairs descend to Sala Persefone. Two former connections with other underground structures remain visible. One is walled up just above floor level, while the other is approximately 5 metres high and closed by a medieval wooden door. Six niches are set into the room, including two at floor level and four about 6 metres above the floor. One of the lower niches was used to channel rainwater, while the upper niches open toward Via Paesiello. The roof is a barrel vault made of soft carparo.
Sala Persefone
Sala Persefone is the oldest and deepest room in the hypogeum. It lies beneath and parallel to Sala Filonide, reaches 16 metres below street level, and extends to approximately 4 metres below sea level. Entirely excavated in the rock, it contains numerous Greek wall remains and an architectural structure of uncertain attribution on its southeastern side. Persephone, a Greek goddess associated with the underworld, was particularly venerated at Taranto during the Greek period.
A visible underground river runs beneath the floor. It gathers water from the Murge, the limestone upland region of Apulia, passes beneath the old town, and emerges into both the Mar Grande and Mar Piccolo. Where these underground watercourses emerge, they produce freshwater springs known as the Citri.
Medieval hydraulic structures collect branches of the underground watercourses in wells and direct them toward the sea. Cisterns on the lower, unseen level beneath Sala Persefone and channels beneath the seaward tunnel of Sala Falanto form part of this water-management system.
Restored palace rooms
The restored aristocratic residence occupies part of the palace’s second floor, the principal residential level traditionally known as the piano nobile. It once formed part of a larger residential area extending across the entire floor and retains artistic features associated with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Taranto.
Entrance and Green Room
The entrance has a 6-metre-high ceiling made with wooden beams. Its former decoration has been lost, while the walls retain the de Beaumont Bonelli family emblem. A study connects the entrance with the first room, known as the Green Room. The study includes stairs leading to mezzanines built during the 2002 restoration, where bedrooms are located.
The Green Room has an eighteenth-century majolica floor and frescoes on its walls and wooden ceiling. Green floral motifs dominate the decoration. A fresco painted by Silvana Galeone in 2003 creates a continuity between the eighteenth-century decoration and the newer frescoes of the 2000s.
Yellow Room
The Yellow Room is the richest room in the residence. Red draperies appear in the wall frescoes, while yellow scenes on the ceiling depict productive activities in eighteenth-century Taranto. Numerous female faces accompany representations of valuable furnishings, Latin inscriptions, paintings, and tapestries.
Its floor is covered with green-blue Vietri ceramic tiles. The colours correspond to the sea visible from the balconies of the two salons.
Kitchen and bathroom
The kitchen has frescoes of trees, plants, and farm animals across its ceiling and walls. The flue of the former small stove was painted and transformed into the image of a fig tree. The small bathroom beside the kitchen is decorated with wall and ceiling frescoes dominated by a Taranto purple-red colour.
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