Description
The Palazzo della Gran Guardia is a large palace, begun in the 1600s and finished only in 1853, closing the southern side of Piazza Bra in Verona, opposite the Arena. It has an 86-meter loggia and a facade that holds its own against the Roman amphitheater a few dozen meters away.
On the ground floor is a loggia of thirteen arches on mighty rusticated piers, closed at the sides by two solid walls with small windows. On the main floor open fifteen windows with paired columns.
The windows are not all the same: the two at the sides are narrower, the eight in between have triangular and curved pediments, the five in the center are arched and much larger. In the middle, above the main floor, rises an attic that lights a double-height hall.
The architect Domenico Curtoni had to reckon with a cumbersome neighbor, the Arena. He used a language different from the amphitheater's, but designed a palace that balanced its weight. Together with the Teatro Filarmonico, another of his works next door, he redrew the look of the square.
For a long time the design was attributed to Michele Sanmicheli, who, however, had died long before work began. The historian Giovambattista Da Persico also noticed that the facade had some irregularities that could not be his, and named Curtoni, who had grown up in the Sanmicheli workshop's tradition.
It was born of a very practical need: a place to review the soldiers when it rains. The Venetian captain of Verona, Giovanni Mocenigo, asked the doge for it on September 26, 1609. Permission arrived on December 30.
In 1614 the money ran out and the building site stopped. In 1639 the Commune of Verona asked to keep ten thousand ducats of taxes in order to restart, but Venice refused. So the east side of the main floor, from the ninth window onward, remained unfinished.
In 1808 the palace passed to the Commune, with the obligation to finish it within three years and make it the seat of the Administration. The building site reopened only in 1819, by then under the Austrians, under the direction of Giuseppe Barbieri, and the monumental staircase was built.
Work was suspended in 1848, when Habsburg soldiers occupied the building for the First War of Independence. It resumed right afterward, and in May 1853 came the final inspection.
On the ground floor is a loggia of thirteen arches on mighty rusticated piers, closed at the sides by two solid walls with small windows. On the main floor open fifteen windows with paired columns.
The windows are not all the same: the two at the sides are narrower, the eight in between have triangular and curved pediments, the five in the center are arched and much larger. In the middle, above the main floor, rises an attic that lights a double-height hall.
The architect Domenico Curtoni had to reckon with a cumbersome neighbor, the Arena. He used a language different from the amphitheater's, but designed a palace that balanced its weight. Together with the Teatro Filarmonico, another of his works next door, he redrew the look of the square.
For a long time the design was attributed to Michele Sanmicheli, who, however, had died long before work began. The historian Giovambattista Da Persico also noticed that the facade had some irregularities that could not be his, and named Curtoni, who had grown up in the Sanmicheli workshop's tradition.
It was born of a very practical need: a place to review the soldiers when it rains. The Venetian captain of Verona, Giovanni Mocenigo, asked the doge for it on September 26, 1609. Permission arrived on December 30.
In 1614 the money ran out and the building site stopped. In 1639 the Commune of Verona asked to keep ten thousand ducats of taxes in order to restart, but Venice refused. So the east side of the main floor, from the ninth window onward, remained unfinished.
In 1808 the palace passed to the Commune, with the obligation to finish it within three years and make it the seat of the Administration. The building site reopened only in 1819, by then under the Austrians, under the direction of Giuseppe Barbieri, and the monumental staircase was built.
Work was suspended in 1848, when Habsburg soldiers occupied the building for the First War of Independence. It resumed right afterward, and in May 1853 came the final inspection.