Verona’s frescoes by Pietro Nanin

You are now observing one of the 48 watercolour engravings made by the veronese painter Pietro Nanin in 1864. Realising that the frescoed facades of the city were being ruined, he wanted to keep the memory of them. Due to this, it is still possible to admire the original colours of the decoration of Palazzo Miniscalchi.

DECORATIVE SCHEME OF THE FAÇADE

The façade is divided into three registers.
In the middle field you find “The Judgement of Solomon”.
In the narrow intervals between the single-lancet arched windows, festoons of fruit and flowers hang from some mascheroni’s jaws.
In the two major intervals there are the false statues of Diana on the right (which has been lost) and of Minerva on the left.

MAIN FLOOR
Between the two mullioned windows you can still read the polychrome with the “Banquet of Damocles”.
In the lateral intervals the festoons of flowers and, inside false niches the statue of Mars; while the group of Venus and Love on the right has been lost.
Above the niches the field is occupied by two cartouches in which Fluvial Deities are represented.
Over the single-lancet windows you can see some unidentifiable busts armed with a clypeus.

GROUND FLOOR
A vivid frieze with putti that ride panthers between vegetale patterns runs between the main floor and the ground one.
At the center, in a symmetrical position two putti sustain the emblem of the Miniscalchi (a burning bush surrounded by three strips of ivy).
Along the gate’s extrados you can read two lying Fluvial Deities.
Two big amphoras are depicted in the first intervals of the single-lancet windows.
In the extreme sections two false feminine statues unidentifiable, but without doubts, depicted on their knees.

The painted scenes in the two superior fields are the work of Michelangelo Aliprandi (Verona, 1527-1595), while the inferior frieze was made by Tullio India il Vecchio (Verona, 1540 ca.- end of the XVI century).