Palazzo Rossi Poggi Marsili

The Palazzo Rossi Poggi Marsili is a historic palazzo at Via Marsala 7 in central Bologna, Italy, that now houses the Quadreria, a painting gallery assembled by ASP Città di Bologna. The building, constructed in the 15th century, was for centuries the seat of the Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi (Charity for the Shameful Poor), an institution devoted to aiding impoverished nobles and landowners who had fallen into need. Since 2016, the palazzo has served as a public museum displaying works from the 16th through 18th centuries, with a particular concentration on the Bolognese school. The Quadreria gained national museum accreditation in 2024.

The palazzo takes its name from the Rossi Poggi Marsili, a noble Bolognese family who long resided there. In 1715, the last heir, Count Giovanni Francesco Rossi Poggi Marsili, bequeathed the building and his remaining assets to the Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, an institution with which he had been actively involved as an administrator. The following year, in 1716, the Opera Pia established its headquarters in the palazzo, a presence it maintained even through the upheavals of the Restoration period. The modern institutional framework emerged between 2014 and 2015, when the major former charitable institutions of Bologna merged to form ASP Città di Bologna, a public entity with municipal participation that inherited the substantial historical and artistic patrimony of its predecessor organizations. The Quadreria was inaugurated on 24 November 2016, with the Map Room and the foundling wheel added in 2017. In 2024, the museum received accreditation to the Sistema museale nazionale.

The Quadreria occupies eight rooms on the ground floor, accessible from the internal courtyard, and displays approximately fifty paintings spanning the 16th to the 18th centuries. The works are organized by period or style and consist primarily of pieces from the Bolognese school. The collection reflects the accumulated artistic heritage of the merged charitable institutions, particularly the Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi and the Confraternita del Baraccano. In addition to paintings, the museum preserves significant documentary and cartographic holdings, including a specialized map room, and a foundling wheel (ruota degli esposti) dating from the period of the Confraternita, used for the anonymous deposit of abandoned infants.

The collection includes several works of particular note. The Stanza del Gandolfi contains seven canvases depicting saints by Ubaldo Gandolfi, commissioned between 1768 and 1776 by Marchese Gregorio Filippo Maria Casali Bentivoglio Paleotti and subsequently donated to the Confraternita del Baraccano. The Sala III or del Cinquecento features works by Denys Calvaert, Marc Antonio Franceschini, and Bartolomeo Ramenghi. Other significant paintings include a Madonna col Bambino benedicente by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino; a portrait of Giovanni Francesco Poggi Rossi Marsili by Giovanni Battista Canziani; a Madonna col Bambino by Elisabetta Sirani; Cristo in casa di Marta e Maria by Prospero and Lavinia Fontana; Il Silenzio from the circle of Michele Desubleo; San Petronio by Ubaldo Gandolfi; Ritorno del figliuol prodigo by Giacomo Cavedone and workshop; and Giudizio di Salomone by Giuseppe Varotti. The Sala delle Mappe holds five late-17th-century maps: four continental maps copied from Frederick de Wit and engraved by Pietro Todeschi after Willem Janszoon Blaeu, and a world map (Nova totvs terrarvm orbis tabvula) engraved by Carlo Scotti, all printed by Giuseppe Longhi.

The Palazzo Rossi Poggi Marsili stands in Bologna's Santo Stefano quarter on Via Marsala, a street renamed during the Napoleonic toponymic reform of 1873-1878, previously known as via di Mezzo di San Martino. The building dates to the 15th century and retains its character as a historic urban palazzo with an internal courtyard. The museum route begins from this courtyard and unfolds across the ground floor. The structure has served multiple institutional functions over its history: noble residence, charitable headquarters, archive, and since 2016, public museum. The historical archive of the Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi continues to be housed in the palazzo alongside the painting gallery.

The Quadreria di Palazzo Rossi Poggi Marsili is located at Via Marsala 7 in the historic center of Bologna. The museum is managed by ASP Città di Bologna and operates under the auspices of the national museum system, having received Sistema museale nazionale accreditation in 2024. Visitors enter through the palazzo's internal courtyard to access the ground-floor exhibition spaces. The official website is https://quadreria.aspbologna.it, which provides further information on visiting hours and access. The institution is also listed on regional and national cultural heritage portals including TourER, Luoghi della Cultura of the Ministero della Cultura, and PatER, the cultural heritage catalog of Emilia-Romagna.