Palazzo Maffei: A Baroque Palace and Museum in Verona
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Roman, Venetian
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page13 sections
History
Palazzo Maffei is a Baroque-style palace in Verona, Italy, built by the Maffei family during the seventeenth century. It stands on the northwestern side of Piazza delle Erbe, a position that has formed part of Verona’s civic center since the Roman period.
Roman and medieval origins
In Roman Verona, the site lay beside the Forum at the meeting point of the city’s principal east-west and north-south streets. The Capitolium, the chief temple of a Roman city, occupied the area. Such temples were generally dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. After the Roman Empire fell, the square became associated with medieval money changers. The Maffei family practiced this profession, and its presence in Verona is documented from 1409.
The Scaliger and fifteenth-century square
During the Scaliger period, when Verona was ruled by the della Scala dynasty, a public wooden loggia for money changers stood along this side of the square. In the fifteenth century, the Maffei family demolished the wooden structure and commissioned a stone replacement for money changers and goldsmiths. Members of the family gradually occupied parts of the loggia, however, and the municipal council ordered them in 1436 to remove additions that obstructed the square and interfered with its public function.
Seventeenth-century rebuilding
On 20 December 1626, Marcantonio Maffei and his nephew Rolandino Maffei received permission from the municipality to clear the loggia’s shops and begin rebuilding their property. The first phase probably created the loggia and the principal residential floor, known as the piano nobile, before or around the plague of 1630. The building was later raised by another level, probably from about 1663, and was completed in 1668. A document from 1653 shows that construction was still under way, while an inscription in the courtyard commemorates the completion.
The architect remains unidentified. Scipione Maffei, a member of another branch of the family who had access to the owners’ archives, said that the plans came from Rome. The palace differs from the work of local architects, and the Maffei family maintained connections with Rome, making the attribution possible but unconfirmed. Minor building work continued during later decades.
Alterations and changing ownership
The roof was first arranged as a garden, with water features, a balustrade facing the square, and six statues. By 1732, the garden had been dismantled. Around the same period, the flat roof was probably replaced by a pitched roof, partly because of problems caused by water entering the building.
The Maffei family offered the palace for sale in 1826, after which it passed through numerous owners. Restoration during the 2010s prepared the building for a new public role. On 15 February 2020, Palazzo Maffei Casa Museo opened as a permanent museum displaying the collection of the Veronese entrepreneur and collector Luigi Carlon. The museum brought the palace into public use in a form that combined historic domestic interiors with galleries for modern and contemporary art.
The museum’s collection includes more than 350 works arranged in approximately twenty rooms covering 1,000 square metres. In April 2025, two visitors destroyed the so-called “Van Gogh” chair, an artwork by Nicola Bolla covered with glittering Swarovski crystals.
Remains
Facade and principal interiors
Baroque facade
The palace forms the built backdrop on the northwestern side of Piazza delle Erbe, with Corso Porta Borsari opening to its left and Corso Sant’Anastasia beginning to its right along the line of Verona’s ancient Roman east-west road. Its three principal levels combine late-Renaissance elements with Baroque decoration.
At ground level, five open bays are framed by rusticated Doric pilasters. The fourth bay from the left leads into the internal courtyard, while the other bays contained commercial premises documented from 1691. Above them, the piano nobile has five large window doors, each with a simple balcony and either a triangular or curved pediment. Ionic half-columns with large masks frame the openings and carry a continuous cornice.
The attic, the upper level above the main cornice, repeats the lower architectural order on a smaller scale. It contains three windows and two window doors, linked by a continuous balcony. Its pilasters have forms compared with Roman military standards, the ceremonial insignia carried by Roman military units, and its pediments bear floral and animal motifs. Above a dentilled cornice, a high frieze carries brackets, framed panels called cartouches, and festoons, which are decorative swags of foliage, flowers, or fabric. A balustrade crowns the facade and supports six statues, arranged from left to right as Hercules, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Apollo, and Minerva.
Frescoed and stuccoed rooms
Several entrance salons on the piano nobile, together with the room facing Piazza delle Erbe, contain classicizing frescoes made between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Interiors facing the secondary courtyard retain architectural ornament and floral stucco framing from the late eighteenth century. Within the museum route, these rooms are presented alongside gallery spaces devoted largely to twentieth-century and contemporary art.
Staircase and archaeological remains
Elliptical staircase
An elliptical helical stone staircase rises from the cellar to the top of the palace without a central supporting structure. This hollow, self-supporting stair is crowned by a lantern, a small roofed structure that admits light, together with statues.
Roman Capitolium foundations
Parts of the foundations and columns of the Roman Capitolium survive in the basement, approximately nine metres below the present street level. These remains connect the seventeenth-century palace with the earlier Roman civic complex on the site and can be viewed during guided visits.
Palazzo Maffei Casa Museo
The collection displayed in the museum consists mainly of paintings, with sculptures, drawings, and works of applied art. Artists represented include Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Felice Casorati, Giorgio Morandi, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Afro Basaldella, Emilio Vedova, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Tancredi Parmeggiani, Gino De Dominicis, and Piero Manzoni. The arrangement places these works within a palace whose frescoed rooms and architectural decoration preserve the building’s residential character.
