Palazzo Campana, in Osimo, was originally the residence of the Campana marquises and later became a college. What tied the palace to education was the will of Marquis Federico Campana, who left his assets to a religious foundation in the absence of direct heirs; after a long legal case, a rescript of 20 September 1715 made the palace the seat of the Nobil Collegio Convitto for boys and of the bishop's seminary. The college won great fame: men of letters, philosophers and mathematicians taught there, and among the pupils were Aurelio Saffi and the future popes Leo XII and Pius VIII. That activity having closed after two and a half centuries, since 1984 the body has been called the Istituto Campana per l'Istruzione Permanente; the palace also houses the municipal library and the town's historical archive.
What to see
The historic library has been since 1851 in a room on the main floor, where you can still see the original wooden shelving and the ceiling decorated with grotesques. It counts about sixteen thousand volumes, largely old ones: among them many manuscripts, some illuminated, twenty incunabula and the atlases of Gerardus Mercator, of 1613, and of Joan Blaeu.
In the oldest rooms is kept the art collection that comes from the bequest of Marquis Federico. Its most interesting core is the seventeenth-century paintings tied to Guercino and his workshop: among them the St Francis in Prayer, which after the restoration of 2014 was attributed definitively to the master. There are also three fragments of frescoes attributed to Andrea da Bologna, with the Coronation of the Virgin, Christ the Judge and angel musicians.
Visiting
The palace hosts exhibitions, conferences and book presentations. What can be visited and at what times should be checked with the Istituto Campana before going.
Our editors' tip
Beneath the palace are two tunnels dug into the sandstone, with a great many figures carved on the walls. Nobody has fully explained them: for some scholars they show pagan deities such as Venus, Bacchus and Mercury, for others they take up the Vices and Virtues of Cesare Ripa's «Iconologia». On one vault are coats of arms of Osimo families. The figures may date from the eighteenth or nineteenth century.
