Palazzo dei Diamanti

About this place

The Palazzo dei Diamanti is a Renaissance palace located on Corso Ercole I d'Este 21 in Ferrara, a city in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna. The main floor of the palace houses the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara. To accommodate the growth of Ferrara, in 1492 the Duke Ercole I d'Este demolished the medieval walls of the city on the north and had the court architect, Biagio Rossetti, design an urban expansion known as the Addizione Erculea. Rosetti was commissioned by Sigismondo d'Este, brother of the Duke Ercole I, to build this palace at the prestigious intersection of what was to be the Decumanus Maximus and Cardo Maximus of the "urban addition". Notice how the building presents itself to the surrounding streets or landscape, then compare its public and more intimate spaces. This helps explain how architecture expressed the position, resources and ambitions of the people who commissioned it.