Palazzo della Marra, Baroque palace in Barletta, Italy.
Palazzo della Marra is a three-level building whose lower facade is clad in dense rough-hewn stone blocks, with an entrance portal flanked by a column set against a pilaster. Above the portal a frieze carries the name Della Marra among winged cherubs, and the first floor holds a balcony on five carved corbels showing monsters, dogs and griffins. A five-arch loggia with cross vaults faces the sea, and a columned courtyard stands behind.
Built during the Renaissance on the remains of an earlier building, the palace was home to the Orsini and then the Della Marra, who remodelled the facade and restored the allegories of Old Age and Youth above the main balcony. In the 18th century it passed to the Fraggianni family, and around 1900 Donato Ceci saved it from state-ordered demolition by restoring it completely. In 1958 it was sold to the state and since 2007 it has housed the Pinacoteca De Nittis.
Since 2007 the palace has housed the Pinacoteca De Nittis, named after the Barletta-born painter Giuseppe De Nittis. The collection is displayed in the restored rooms of the aristocratic residence, so the visit combines the palace's own history with the artworks it now holds.
The palace stands in Barletta's historic centre; the Pinacoteca De Nittis has occupied it since 2007, after restoration by the Bari and Foggia superintendencies following decades of abandonment. Visitors enter from the street through the portal set in the rusticated lower facade, with the five-arch sea-facing loggia above.
This building is the only example of Lecce Baroque architecture found outside the Salento region of Puglia. This makes it an architectural outlier that demonstrates how this style influenced construction practices beyond its geographic heartland.
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