Leonello d’Este e Belfiore: il torrione, lo studiolo, le Muse

In light of new documents we can reconstruct the shape of the first suburban Este villa, Belfiore, near Ferrara, founded about 1392. It was a building of very limited size, with a single floor, equipped with a loggia and eight rooms, some of which with an anteroom, as well as service areas. In 1447 Leonello d’Este began an expansion of the building. The most interesting aspect, beyond the value of the pictorial cycle of the Muses and of the wooden marquetry, consists of the architectural typology chosen, which had not been identified by previous scholars. It is clear that two upper floors were added to a limited part of the palace: a winter apartment for the marquis, with a central role attributed to study and the “camerini” close to it, including the wardrobe, a storage area for textile furnishings and also for precious objects. The result, as the subsequent inventories testify, is a large residential tower, inspired by models of the French Middle Ages.