Name of Monument:

Palazzo Miti Zagnoni Raffi

Location:

Imola, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Date:

Seventeenth-eighteenth century

Artists:

Lorenzo Mattoni; Cosimo Mattoni

Denomination / Type of monument:

Noble residence

Patron(s):

Miti family

History:

Tommaso was the first of this family of landowners to move to Imola at the end of the sixteenth century. Fabrizio Miti, canon of the cathedral of Imola, bought in 1648 from countess Vittoria Dal Pero Sassatelli three adjoning houses on the via Emilia, for 7000 scudi. From that date to 1722, when Diamante Miti marries Giorgio Zagnoni, the Mitis worked to unite the three houses and finally unifing them with an imposing façade on the Via Emilia. The palace was inherited in 1722 by the Zagnoni family who sold it in 1794 to the brothers Andrea and Giuseppe Raffi, from a rich family of Faenza. After many trasfers of property the building was bought in 1978 by a trade union (CGIL) to house its offices.

Description:

The three houses core of the future residence before 1648 developed in the usual way with their front on the via Emilia; they had wells and gardens and they were probably on several levels. Rifurbishing the building took to a complete rearrengment of spaces. Was added a monumental staircase, the small central court was made into an icehouse and on the first floor was built an hall of honour with a great fireplace. Some traces of the fifteenth-century buildings are visible: an archway, some pictorical decorations. They are good quality decorations testifing of the good economical position of the former owners of the house, the Dal Pero Sassatelli. The senteenth-eighteenth-century refurbishing took to a complete redecoration of the interiors: fireplaces, overdoors and three fresco ceilings on the first floor commissioned to the Rolli brothers around 1680. In the first room the central scene depicts “Dawn expelling Night”, in the second one is represented the “Glory of the Miti family” while in the third one there is a sleeping female figure and a quotation from the Song of Songs. The façade, the last work made at the beginning of the eigthteenth-century in order to complete the remodelling of the three building into one residence, was made by the architects Lorenzo and Cosimo Mattoni from Como, who built in Imola many churches and residences.

This building is among the most significant residences in Imola; it stands on the via Emilia, a few meters from the main square. The palace was remodelled from 1648, when it was purhcased by the Miti family; the works were finished around 1722. The palace was built over three houses dating to the fifteenth-century. Today it houses the Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (CGIL); it is possible to visit it. The first floor was decorated at the end of the seventeenth-century by the Bolognese brothers Rolli, with scenes celebrating the Miti family.

How Monument was dated:

Historical documents

Special features

Glorification of the Miti family

Palazzo Miti Zagnoni, first floor, hall of honour, ceiling

c. 1680

Giuseppe and Antonio Rolli

the ceiling is decorated with a motive of niches with cartouches and corbels; in the middle is represented an allegorical scene.

Glorification of the Miti family

Palazzo Miti Zagnoni, first floor, hall of honour, ceiling

c. 1680

Giuseppe and Antonio Rolli

Justice holds the scale while Right lays a lily on it.

Niche with a flower vase

Palazzo Miti Zagnoni, first floor, hal of honour, ceiling, corner

c. 1680

Giuseppe and Antonio Rolli

A vase with roses, irises and carnations.

Selected bibliography:

Pagani, A. and Venturini, B., Palazzo Miti Zagnoni, della Storia dell'Arte, Imola, 2001
Alberti, M.G.,“Affreschi inedititi dei Rolli a Imola”, Il Carrobbio, VI, 1980, pp. 22-26

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright images: Archivio fotografico Musei Civici di Imola.

Citation of this web page:

Oriana  Orsi "Palazzo Miti Zagnoni Raffi" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;it;Mon12;18;en

Prepared by: Oriana OrsiOriana Orsi

SURNAME: Orsi
NAME: Oriana

AFFILIATION: Musei Civici, Imola

TITLE: curator

CV: graduated and specialized in History of Art at the University of Bologna, curator of the Musei Civici di Imola. She cares for the collections and organizes exhibitions; she also collaborates with the Soprintendenza ai beni storico artistici of Bologna and with the University. She is a specialist in cataloguing works of art and she has written many papers about this subject; since 2004 she is colloborating with the Assessorato alla cultura of the Province of Ferrara about the project Este Court Archive (www.eca.ferrara.it) for the reconstruction of the Ferrarese cultural heritage at the court of the Este family.
Translation by: Antonella MampieriAntonella Mampieri

SURNAME: Mampieri
NAME: Antonella

AFFILIATION: Musei Civici d’Arte Antica, Bologna

TITLE: Art Hitorian

CV:
Graduated and specialised at the University of Bologna. She is a specialist in Bolognese late Baroque art, namely sculpture. Among other subjects she has been studying nineteenth-century funerary art in the Bologna monumental cemetery, la Certosa.

MWNF Working Number: IT2 22