Palazzo Martinengo Cesaresco Novarino, better known as the Martinengo palace par excellence, is a noble palace in Brescia located in Piazza del Foro, south of the Capitolium. Always the main town residence of the Martinengo family, during the twentieth century it was first the headquarters of the Brescia Police Headquarters and then purchased and recovered by the Provincial Administration and is now the site of exhibitions and an underground archaeological route. Part of the building is instead used as administrative offices of the provincial body.
The history of Palazzo Martinengo dates back to the early Iron Age, from the 11th century to about the 5th century BC [1], as evidenced by the finds that form the underground archaeological route of the palace. In Roman times the area where Palazzo Martinengo stands today was used as a residential area, which later became civic, thus forming the Roman Brixia, and then abandoned in the Middle Ages in favor of areas such as Piazza Paolo VI and the current Piazza della Victory.
The current palace was founded in the mid-seventeenth century, on the remains of a previous fifteenth-century building, commissioned by Count Cesare IV Martinengo Cesaresco, descendant of the eponymous noble Bergamo family who moved to Brescia during the sixteenth century, who bought numerous palaces in the area belonging to the noble families of Brescia, including the Gambara.
Palazzo Martinengo
Address: Via dei Musei, 30, 25121
Phone: 320 013 0694
Site:
http://amicimartinengo.it/Location inserted by
Culturalword Abco