Lucrezia Borgia's Palace in Renaissance Ferrara

Abstract

Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara, constructed a palace in Ferrara between 1515 and 1518 adjacent to the convent of San Bernardino, which she had founded in 1509. Following her death in 1519, most of the palace was turned over to the nuns of San Silvestro for their new convent, and all historical memory of the palace disappeared. She did not intend the palace as a suburban residence or as a spectacular retreat, but as the head-quarters of her burgeoning agricultural and reclamation enterprises, activities also forgotten over the centuries. This study strips away the additions that were erected between 1520 and 1809 to arrive at a projected reconstruction of the palace as commissioned by Lucrezia, and explores the evidence for how she intended to use it.

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