Visit to Palazzo Re Enzo: guide to the jewel of Bologna
During the Middle Ages, the city government met at Palazzo Re Enzo. It is part of a group of buildings near Piazza Maggiore in the center of Bologna. It got its name from King Enzo, who was locked up there for 23 years.
The 13th-century Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna is a great example of a medieval building. It looks out over Piazza del Nettuno and is near the Basilica of San Petronio and Piazza Maggiore.
The Palace is part of a group of buildings put up by the city of Bologna at the end of a series of evictions that led to the opening of Piazza Maggiore in 1200.
So, the Palazzo del Podestà was the first building to be built. Then, between 1244 and 1246, the city government offices were built in the Palazzo Re Enzo (also called Palazzo Nuovo) and the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo.
The building’s entrance was on Piazza del Nettuno. On the ground floor, there were war machines and the Carroccio, a large wagon on which the city signs flew. On the first floor, there were the magistrate’s offices and a chapel.
On the right side of the building, in the passageway that led to the Voltone del Podestà, was the chapel of Santa Maria dei Carcerati. It was called that because people who were sentenced to death said their last prayers there.
The visit to the palace
The courtyard, which is 250 square meters and has an old sandstone well in the middle, is reached by a short staircase with a view of Piazza della Fontana del Nettuno.
On the right is the small church of Santa Maria dei Carcerati, where people who were sentenced to death were taken. It has decorations by the English artist David Tremlett and has just been fixed up.
The upper floors are reached by a wide staircase on the left.
The most notable rooms inside Palazzo Re Enzo are undoubtedly the Sala del Trecento, now the Sala degli Atti, designed in 1386 by Antonio di Vincenzo and destined to become the seat of the municipal archive, and the magnificent Salone del Podestà.
This huge hall, which is inside the Palazzo del Podestà but can only be reached through the grand staircase of the Palazzo Re Enzo, was once used as a courtroom. After that, it was a theater until 1767, and then it was turned into a ballroom.
The Sala Re Enzo is on the second floor. The architect of the Senate, Giovanni Giacomo Dotti, rebuilt it in 1771.
The last room is the Sala del Quadrante. It is 150 m2 and got its name from the old clock face painted on the ceiling of the room next to it. From here, you can see some of the medieval towers in Bologna.
Alfonso Rubbiani, a native of Bologna, restored the building in 1905. He gave it back its medieval look by restoring the battlements, the arches on the ground floor, and the staircase from the 15th century. He also added details that weren’t in the original plan, like reopening the mullioned windows, in keeping with the neo-medieval style of the time.
Lastly, the restoration work on the Piazza del Nettuno, Via Rizzoli, and Piazza Re Enzo buildings’ fronts started in 2003.
King Enzo’s story
The figure of Enzo, king of Sardinia, also called Enzo di Svevia, has made the building famous over the years.
Enzo, the son of Emperor Frederick II, was locked up in the palace only three years after it was built.
This tied his life and the building’s history together in a way that couldn’t be broken.
In 1249, the Guelphs of Bologna and the Ghibelline troops of the Holy Roman Empire, led by Enzo, fought in the battle of Fossalta, a town near Modena.
The latter beat the emperor’s son and his troops from Modena and Cremona. Enzo was then caught and locked up in what would become the Palazzo Re Enzo, which is where the government of Bologna was based.
Enzo never left the rooms where he was locked up, which were on the second floor of the building (where Sala Re Enzo is now). He died there in 1272.
During the 23 years that his son was in prison, Frederick II made many ransom offers, but the Bolognese always turned them down.
Many colorful stories grew up about King Enzo’s time in the palace and his appearance.
In fact, it is said that Enzo had a pretty good time in prison. He spent his time reading books and hanging out with young women.
Tradition says that he had three daughters and one boy while he was in captivity. The boy was the son of the peasant woman Lucia di Viadagola.
Because of the nice things Enzo said to her, her son would have been called Bentivoglio and known as the ancestor of a famous noble Bolognese family that ran the city in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Enzo was buried in the Basilica of San Domenico with a lot of honors as a sign of how much the people cared about him after he died.
What else is interesting about Palazzo Re Enzo?
Not everyone knows, for example, that the four-cusped arch between the Re Enzo and Palazzo del Podestà buildings is home to a unique acoustic effect: if you put your ear close to one of the columns, you can clearly hear what people on either side are saying. For example, a wireless phone uses opposites.
Have you ever noticed that there used to be a French door on the front of the building facing Via Rizzoli that led to a balcony that no longer exists?
People called this small terrace “the garden of the Lazzarina” because it was full of flowers. Once upon a time, it was tradition that the executioner’s wife would put a flower there after every execution.
How to get to Palazzo Re Enzo
The building is in the historic center of Bologna, which is called the ZTL. The main train station is a 20-minute walk away, so the best way to get there is to walk or take the bus.
