Palazzo Sanuti. Arte e società nell'età dei Bentivoglio

The Renaissance architectonic cultures from Tuscany and Ferrara met in Bologna to realize an absolutely new building extirpated from the usual local conventions and that still today has not been the subject of a monograph. This work means to travel along the palace history through an historical and critical analysis of the documents and of the stylistic deductions that still do not bring to certainty in its attribution, but that open scenes of intense exchanges and collaborations among important authors in the crucial period of the formation of a new artistic culture (from the seventies of the fifteenth until the sixteenth century), coming from two capital cities of Italian Renaissance: Florence and Ferrara.The palace of Bologna is like a spaceship in an alien planet: a manifest of the first Renaissance in the heart of an all medieval or counter-reformist city.
This provocation, perhaps a little exaggerated and too much undemanding, is useful to comprehend the exceptionality of this building. The first patron, Nicolò Sanuti, commenced it in 1477, but he never saw his work ended, that was then finished in its decorations and in the courtyard construction with a double order of open galleries, by her wife Nicolosia; only a few years later (1484) the palace was given up to Giovanni II Bentivoglio. The acts of exchange and therefore the information on the owners and the subsequent widening or restorations do not lack indeed, but we do not have any information about the architect of the project. The only certain information that we get from the title deeds of 1484 is about Giacomo Filippo of Paolo from Ferrara, painter, and Benedetto of Michele from Pistoia, probable participants to the realization of part of the building called for a consultation instead of the planner since he was engaged and elsewhere resident and of excessive caliber to be involved in a simple esteem. The palace has been variously attributed to Francesco di Simone Ferrucci from Fiesole (Adolfo Venturi), Bartolomeo Suardi known as the Bramantino (Bianconi), Bramante Lazzari (Oretti). However, the lack of positive documents or convincing stylistic indications makes the attribution of the work still an open problem.