Description
The Palazzo del Monte di Pietà closes one side of Piazza del Duomo in Padua: a medieval portico of six arches carrying a Renaissance façade by Giovanni Maria Falconetto. For centuries the people of Padua pawned their belongings here for a loan; today they come for the exhibitions.
Look at the fourteenth-century portico, tall and elegant, which survived the fire that devastated the rest of the building in the sixteenth century. Under the arches some brick cornices of the medieval palace remain.
Above it, Falconetto's façade, unveiled in 1533, adds a classical composition with a pattern of circles and lozenges. On the façade there is also the stucco Pietà by Silvio Cosini, finished in the years just after the unveiling.
On the Via Monte di Pietà side the palace changes face: the mighty Mannerist façade by Vincenzo Dotto, built between 1611 and 1613, with the seventeenth-century extension. The decorations from that building phase, frescoes and a statue, all depict Blessed Bernardino da Feltre.
Bernardino, a Franciscan friar, founded Padua's Monte di Pietà, active from 1491. The idea was simple: lend small sums cheaply in exchange for a pledge, to rescue the poorest from the usurers. Domenico Campagnola portrayed him in a fresco in the new premises.
There is an irony in the palace's story. According to tradition, in the Middle Ages it belonged to the notorious usurer Rinaldo Scrovegni. Two centuries later it became the home of the institution set up precisely to fight usury.
In between came the age of the Carraresi, when the building became part of the Reggia Carrarese, and then Venice, which owned it after its conquest of 1405. After the fire, Venice sold what was left to the Monte di Pietà for 10,000 ducats.
In 1822 the palace passed to the Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, which added two inner wings in the nineteenth century. Today it is the seat of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, which stages major art exhibitions here.
Look at the fourteenth-century portico, tall and elegant, which survived the fire that devastated the rest of the building in the sixteenth century. Under the arches some brick cornices of the medieval palace remain.
Above it, Falconetto's façade, unveiled in 1533, adds a classical composition with a pattern of circles and lozenges. On the façade there is also the stucco Pietà by Silvio Cosini, finished in the years just after the unveiling.
On the Via Monte di Pietà side the palace changes face: the mighty Mannerist façade by Vincenzo Dotto, built between 1611 and 1613, with the seventeenth-century extension. The decorations from that building phase, frescoes and a statue, all depict Blessed Bernardino da Feltre.
Bernardino, a Franciscan friar, founded Padua's Monte di Pietà, active from 1491. The idea was simple: lend small sums cheaply in exchange for a pledge, to rescue the poorest from the usurers. Domenico Campagnola portrayed him in a fresco in the new premises.
There is an irony in the palace's story. According to tradition, in the Middle Ages it belonged to the notorious usurer Rinaldo Scrovegni. Two centuries later it became the home of the institution set up precisely to fight usury.
In between came the age of the Carraresi, when the building became part of the Reggia Carrarese, and then Venice, which owned it after its conquest of 1405. After the fire, Venice sold what was left to the Monte di Pietà for 10,000 ducats.
In 1822 the palace passed to the Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, which added two inner wings in the nineteenth century. Today it is the seat of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, which stages major art exhibitions here.