The Palazzo Scotti Da Vigoleno is an eighteenth-century building that
belonged to the Scotti da Vigoleno family, now the seat of
the Prefecture. Worthy of note are the three-nave atrium, the grand
staircase and the frescoes, depicting celebratory allegories of the
Scotti family, which adorn the upper hall.
The Prefecture of Piacenza is located in the historic monumental
building "Scotti di Vigoleno", which takes its name from one of the four
powerful families who exercised the power of the city during the Middle
Ages, and who called the district where the buildings of his property
stood. The palace was built by the Marquis Filippo, who began work in
1717, to finish them a decade later. At the beginning of the 1700s in
Piacenza the families of the most ancient nobility and those of the rich
merchants of recent nobility competed for the supremacy of the
sumptuousness and elegance of the dwellings. The Marquis Filippo
entrusted the work to the architect Ignazio Cerri to have an adequate
building erected for his illustrious family and to prepare a separate
apartment for his eldest son Francesco, betrothed to Maria Lucrezia
Pallavicino of Busseto and Zibello. Construction costs were very high.
The house was inhabited by a large family, assisted by many servants.
The interior decoration was entrusted to Francesco Natali and Bartolomeo
Rusca, the best artists working in Piacenza in Piacenza, who created a
series of frescoes that stand out for their high quality and originality
among the examples of the decorations of Piacenza from the 1700s and
early 1800s. The eighteenth-century grace of the paintings reveal a
typical plastic and theatrical taste of the late Baroque period.
Rusca, whose cultural referent was the decorative vein of the Genoese
masters, was an artist endowed with a remarkable ability to assimilate
and enrich his own culture, gaining considerable success among the most
prominent families of Piacenza.
The sumptuous hall of honor of the Scotti di Vigoleno palace (so called
Sala delle Armi for the depictions on the walls), an extraordinary
complex, is characterized by the vault depicting the "Triumph of the
Scotti family", which represents allegorical figures with lively and
fresh colours.
On the death of the Marquis Gaetano, in 1876, none of the co-heirs
wanted to take over the family palace, considered to be of high value
but of no income, which, therefore, was sold for seventy thousand lire
to the Provincial Administration of Piacenza. The Scotti family
abandoned its residence and its members settled in various buildings in
Piacenza.
The Provincial Administration decided to transfer its offices and those
of the Prefecture, deciding that the offices of the Prefecture and of
the Province would be housed in the west wing, using the large hall for
administration meetings, while the remainder of the apartment the first
floor would have been used for the offices of the Prefecture and for
housing of the Prefect; in the north wing the Provveditorato alle Studi
had to settle, on the ground floor the Questura and on the second floor
other offices. Later, only the ground floor of the police headquarters
remained and the prefect's quarters on the main floor, while the rest of
the premises were used as offices for the Prefecture. In March 1997 the
Police Headquarters transferred its offices to the new headquarters in
Viale Malta.
In the days following April 25, 1945 the offices were looted by the
fascists and then by the partisans, and a fire caused the loss of
important historical and archival documentation.
Notes:
1
. Breccia is a term most often used for clastic sedimentary rocks that
are composed of large angular fragments (over two millimeters in
diameter).
2
. Is this the Alberto Douglas Scotti, Lord of
Piacenza, established
the fortified military residence of
Fombio in 1299?
3
. So good they named it twice?
For more on the Douglas Scotti families of Italy, see our
Italy portal.
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