Palazzo Bevilacqua

Palazzo Bevilacqua stands along Verona’s Corso as a Renaissance civil building designed by Michele Sanmicheli. Its rusticated stone ground floor alternates narrow and wide bays beneath a lighter upper storey. Arched openings and a continuous balcony give the façade a strong classical rhythm.

The Bevilacqua family commissioned the residence during the sixteenth century, after gaining influence through timber trade, river transport, and service to Verona. Sanmicheli planned a much larger complex, but the unfinished wings, abrupt entablature, and asymmetrical entrance reveal the project’s limits. Mario Bevilacqua later used the upper loggia for sculptures and a music room, while the surrounding rooms held paintings and rare manuscripts. The city received the building in 1899, and education took over after renovations created a technical institute in 1905.

The complex now includes older seventeenth- and eighteenth-century structures, later classrooms, gyms, and underground parking. Restoration work in 1984 and 2005 repaired the stone façade and other architectural details. Some former sculptures reached Munich’s Glyptothek, while surviving manuscripts entered Verona’s Biblioteca Capitolare.