Inside the Palazzo Ricci

Finally the day arrived that we were able to go inside the Palazzo together for the first time. I could hardly wait to get inside to see how big it was with my own eyes. I had never been in a palace before so my curiosity was over the top.

Opening the door to the Palazzo

Pasquale, our geometra (an architect and surveyor) arranged to get the keys and here is a video of us taking a tour inside the Palazzo Ricci!

Palazzo Ricci History

A little background on the Palazzo. It was the main home of Baron Ricci, an Italian Senator and it was built in 1799. The Ricci family entertained dignitaries, royalty, and some of the most famous artists and writers of the time. During World War II, Palazzo Ricci served as an officer’s residence for both German and British regional commanders. The Palazzo became the Ricci family’s summer home after WWII. Read more about the Palazzo and updates here

At some point and time the Palazzo was not used for day to day living. The Ricci family allowed a school to use the building for about 15 years. After the school moved out the building stayed empty for another 10-12 years. With no one tended to it for so long it started to fall apart. The roof started leaking and after many years of rain and snow parts of the building began to suffer.

We were blown away seeing the stunning architecture, the large rooms with tons of sunlight. The atrium above is so incredible and at one time had leaded glass in it. The gorgeous stained glass doors and windows throughout the palazzo are still in really good shape. The amazing marble staircase that leads upstairs where we could see stunning ceilings. A few of the rooms had been renovated for the school that was housed there.

Looking In Rooms

We could open up doors to some of the rooms and to our surprise there was still furniture in them! Old bed frames, beautiful antique dressers, framed photos, large wooden chests, chair and tables. In one room there was a huge library area with all kinds of Italian law books.

In another room there were huge wooden barrels in a small cantina. We assume where they would make wine and bottle olive oil probably from their own vineyard. The large green glass wine bottles sitting in baskets really caught my eye. We could see two ancient wooden olive presses in the basement. So many original things furnishings and details that were left there. I felt like I was on a treasure hunt. I am still hoping to find a other secret treasures in there somewhere 😉

We could not go up to the top 2 floors because of so much deterioration. The damage from the leaking roof made it unsafe.

When you walk inside the Palazzo Ricci entrance, you can see all the way through the large hallway to the other side. There you can see the large stained glass doors opening out to the garden. It is just stunning!

The Garden and Grand Staircase

Once outside you could see that this was the grand staircase leading out to the over grown garden. The garden area was so thick with overgrown foliage we could not see to the end of the property! It was like we were in the movie Jumangi where the plants take over the house! So sad that this beautiful crown jewel Palazzo Ricci had just been left alone for too long.

Even though it is in really rough shape we could see some serious potential! Over the years we have been fans of remodeling shows. One of our favorites in the 90’s was This Old House and then recently Fixer Upper and Home Town. We have even flipped a few homes ourselves over the years and we love seeing how they turn out. So why not a palace?

The first thing we did was to see how stable the foundation was before we did anything else. If that was a problem we would probably not have moved forward to purchase it. We had local engineer firm come and do sizemic and structural testing and it passed. The foundation is strong but sizemic and structural updating will need to be done.

This is the current state of the Palazzo Ricci after much of the heavy layers of vegetation have been cut down. So much more work is about to commence inside the Palazzo Ricci and out.

More exciting things to come! I can’t wait to tell you all about a secret room that our architects stumbled across and another floor no one knew about! This grand beauty holds many secrets and we can’t wait to find them!

If you missed my first post about how it all started, you can read it here- We just bought an Italian Palace