Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste: A Baroque Palace in Ravenna
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Papal States
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page11 sections
History
Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste is a historic palace in Ravenna, Italy, built on an already developed urban site during the final decade of the seventeenth century. Its design combines late Mannerist and Classical elements with the transition from Baroque to Rococo architecture. The project was initiated by Giovanni Rasponi, Bishop of Forlì from 1689 to 1714, together with his brother, Count Giuseppe Rasponi, as an attempt to restore the prestige of a family whose political influence in Ravenna was declining.
The Rasponi project
The land had belonged to the Rasponi family since at least the fifteenth century. Giuseppe Rasponi secured the building site after prevailing in a dispute with his relative Carlo Maria Rasponi, who opposed the project because the proposed palace would block light from reaching his nearby residence. Giovanni conceived, financed, and supervised the work from its planning stages until his death.
Construction continued into the eighteenth century. Ippolito Rasponi completed the principal facade in 1738, by which time the family’s wider political power in Ravenna was also weakening. Several designers have been proposed for the palace, including Luca Danese of Ravenna, a seventeenth-century humanist and mathematician also associated with the church of San Romualdo.
The family branch connected with Giovanni later adopted the addition “dalle Teste,” meaning “of the heads.” The name referred to the many sculpted heads on the facade, especially lions and blindfolded Moors.
Alterations and wartime damage
The palace was repeatedly modified during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the 1930s, the medieval-built block in front of it was demolished to create the market square now called Piazza Kennedy. The clearance also removed the palace garden, other buildings, and the remains of the fifth-century Basilica of Sant’Agnese, which was demolished in 1936. The new square changed the palace’s visual setting from an oblique approach to a frontal view, reducing the theatrical effect originally produced by its richly ornamented portal.
Bombing during the Second World War damaged the piano nobile, the principal residential floor traditionally reserved for reception and ceremonial rooms. The attack destroyed its vault and many exterior decorations. In 1977, the last Rasponi heir transferred the monumental complex to the Municipality of Ravenna during the mayoral term of Aristide Canosani. In 1980, the gateway from Via Luca Longhi was reopened, giving access to the inner courtyard and the former stables. The stables had been demolished and replaced by a two-storey building.
Public use and restoration
During the 1980s and 1990s, interior works adapted the palace for use as a university campus, although some of these spaces were later abandoned. Agreements between the Municipality of Ravenna and the Fondazione del Monte for the building’s revival began in 2005 and were updated by a memorandum signed on 8 April 2010. Major restoration took place from 2011 to 2014 with support from the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna. Studio Cervellati directed the project, while specialist conservation work treated the artworks inside the palace. The building now contains some municipal offices, while other spaces host exhibitions, concerts, conferences, and cultural events.
Remains
Facade and entrance sequence
The principal facade extends for 70 metres and is arranged with precise symmetry around a central portal, lateral balconies, and a central turret. Its decoration reflects the movement from late Mannerism and Classical design toward Baroque and Rococo forms. Alternating blindfolded Moor heads and lion heads appear on the window architraves of the upper floors, while the sills carry crossed lion paws with exposed claws, the emblem of the Rasponi family.
The monumental portal frames a double-height entrance hall. The hall is divided into three parts, recalling a church with three naves, and leads to the piano nobile through the ceremonial staircase. This formal staircase was designed for both movement and display. It ends at a doorway leading toward the main salon, above which a large Rasponi coat of arms shows crossed lion paws with their claws exposed.
State rooms and painted decoration
Main salon
The main double-height salon formerly served as Count Giuseppe Rasponi’s residence. Four doors are topped by stucco ornaments, mouldable plaster decorations centred on busts of ancestors or mythical figures. Comparable treatments appear in other rooms belonging to the part of the palace built during Bishop Giovanni’s lifetime, and the same decorative scheme was intended for the newer section on the right, reached by the ceremonial staircase.
Episcopal rooms
Six episcopal rooms contain elaborate three-dimensional ornament. Their decorated portals formed a gallery that once displayed more than one hundred valuable paintings. The piano nobile also contains ceiling frescoes attributed to Ercole Gaetano Bertuzzi, showing Minerva, Flora, and Jupiter.
Recovered ceilings and frescoes
Restoration revealed two decorated coffered ceilings on the first floor. These ceilings are formed from recessed panels. The work also uncovered fresco decoration on the window jambs of the piano nobile, fragments depicting architectural elements, and other painted ceilings and decorated surfaces with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ornament that had been concealed by suspended ceilings. Conservation recovered and protected numerous interior surfaces and artworks after the wartime destruction.
Stonework, courtyard, and former garden
Giovanni Rasponi originally specified Istrian stone for the palace’s exterior. Financial difficulties led his heirs to substitute the less expensive and more friable stone of San Leo, followed later by cement made with aggregates of varying sizes and terracotta. The different materials reflect changes made during the building’s long construction and subsequent history.
The gateway from Via Luca Longhi opens toward the internal courtyard and the site of the former stables. The stables were demolished and replaced by a two-storey building. A large private garden once stretched in front of the palace across the area now occupied by Piazza Kennedy, reaching as far as the side of Palazzo Rasponi Murat.
