Villa Smeraldi is a rural palace, now museum, along the Canale Navile near the town of Bentivoglio in the

Province of Bologna The province of Bologna ( it, provincia di Bologna) was a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital was the city of Bologna. The province of Bologna covered an area of and had a total population of 1,004,323 inhabitan ...

, in the region of

Emilia-Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

of Italy. The villa is the host of the Museum of Peasant Farming Culture (in Italian: Museo della civiltà contadina), which documents the buildings, tools, routines, and daily lives of those involved in rural agriculture from landowner to

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

Emilia-Romagna Bo Bentivoglio Museo della civiltà contadina

History

Built on the foundations of a series of buildings constructed in the 1700 and 1800s, the Villa Smeraldi complex is known by the surname of its most recent owners. The various structures of the property reveal the duality of its origins. The villa, once known as a casino or rural palazzo, dates back to 1783, when it belonged to the Counts of Zambeccari. Over the following century, the buildings were expanded, a

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

-style tower was added and some free-style gardens were made to surround the villa. In the late second half of the 19th century by Count Gaetano Zucchini and his son Antonio expanded the property. From 1922 to 1942, it was owned by Rigoberto Smeraldi, who engaged in agriculture and raised thoroughbred horses. The property was inherited by Antonio Roversi. During the Second World War the villa was mainly occupied by German army. The province of Bologna acquired the site in 1970 to create the museum. The "Salone delle Feste" of the

piano nobile The ''piano nobile'' (Italian for "noble floor" or "noble level", also sometimes referred to by the corresponding French term, ''bel étage'') is the principal floor of a palazzo. This floor contains the main reception and bedrooms of the hou ...

of the villa was frescoed in the 19th century.Comune of Bentivoglio
Paolo Monti Paolo Monti (11 August 1908 – 29 November 1982) was an Italian photographer, known for his architectural photography. In his early period, Monti experimented with abstractionism as well as with effects such as blurring and diffraction. In 19 ...

History

References