Rangoni Palace

Located in the northern area of the Castle, where there is the oldest part of the walls, the original building was probably of rather modest construction. Everything changed radically when the condottiero Jacopino Rangoni obtained the fief of Castelvetro from Cardinal Betrando del Poggetto, papal legate of Pope John XXII. After some restoration and expansion work, the building became the headquarters of the Lords of the city.

With the advent of the Rangoni family, the palace took on representative and residential features, given the importance that Castelvetro held from the 15th century onwards as the capital of the fiefdom.

After the violent earthquake that struck the city in 1501, the building was rebuilt by the Rangoni family along with many other parts of the Castle.

The rooms are richly decorated with 16th-century works attributable, for the most part, to the painter Gian Antonio Scacceri and characterised by natural elements inserted in the coffered ceilings and the bands below. The Dolphins Room, the Bears Room and the Putti Room are particularly worthy of note.

At the end of the 19th century, the parish priest of Castelvetro, Don Luigi Rinaldi, commissioned Ferdinando Manzini to paint four large canvases, inside what was later called the Tasso Room, depicting the life of the poet Torquato Tasso, who was a guest of the Rangoni family in 1564.