Palazzo Mansueti

PALAZZO MANSUETI


HISTORICAL AND ARCHIVAL INFORMATION ON PALAZZO MANSUETI
(by Raffaella Clerici)
Actually, the study carried out on the registered parcel of land (n. 443) of the antique cadasters, which are kept at the State Archives (branch of Spoleto), tells the following architectonical history: the Building already existed in 1835 and itbeloged to the noble Gaetano Montini Taddei. He had a valuation of property of 300 Italian coins called “scudi”. It wasdescribed as a “house with a courtyard of its own”. The Building was acquired by new owners, the Soldoni family, in 1877. The head of the family, Emilio Soldoni, passed away in 1892 but his sisters Maria and Emilia kept the property and bought the neighboring residence (registered parcel n. 444), widening and embellishing the Building.
Emilia Soldoni married the noble Ernesto Mansueti, who was grown in an important and erudite family f rom Trevi in 1892. Thus, due to their concrete contribution and their love for taste, the Mansueti family made an important renewal of the façade possible, and probably also of some parts of the interior, as shown in recent in-depth analysis. They were entrusted to the architect Carlo Antonelli, who designed the building as we can admire it today. The initial letters of The Mansueti building (from the name of the owner, Ernesto Mansueti, who supported the precious renewals dating back to the first half of the twentieth Century) is clearly inspired to the neoclassical style, which goes back to the second half of the eighteenth Century and the first half of the nineteenth Century. It can be proved by the architraves of the windows on the noble floor and by its architectonical style in Ernesto Mansueti were drawn in the balustrade of the honor balcony in 1905, in the period of greatest splendor of the building. The property of the Mansueti Building was acquired by Francesco Mansueti, the younger brother and the only heir of Ernesto, in 1925; in the next decades, instead, it was divided amongst new people, who bought different rooms for residential purposes; however, the Mansueti family kept the biggest property. Vincenzo Mansueti, Francesco’s son, sold a big part that he owned, while his sister Angelica Mansueti jealously kept her property.
In the Acts of 1926 of the “Accademia Spoletina” there is an exhaustive description of how the Mansueti Bulding was at that time. “It is a very elegant house, both for the framed big door and for the beautiful renewal of the façade with windows and brick balconies. The Ernesto Mansueti’s will of renewing the building dates back to 1905 - he passed away in 1925 - according to the drawing by the architect Antonelli”. The volume continues by underlining the richness and the refinement of the materials used, including the earthenwares “of the Biscarini factories in Perugia”.
The interior of the honor floor was described in detail as a “big noble hall and some rooms with decorated paneled ceiling, with carved walnut furniture, including chests boxes”. “A beautiful balcony from which the whole valley of Spoleto can be seen” stands on the roof.

(Historical sources: State Archives – branch of Spoleto, Municipality of Spoleto, cadaster, series 8, 1, n. 14; Actes of the “Accademia Spoletina [1923-1926])

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