Palazzo della Provincia, Provincial government palace in Ravenna, Italy

Palazzo della Provincia is an administrative building with four wings arranged around a central garden featuring Byzantine design elements. A portico marks the main entrance and connects the different sections of the complex.

The Rasponi family's 17th-century palace stood here until 1886, then became a hotel. In 1922 fascists led by Italo Balbo set it on fire, destroying it. Giulio Ulisse Arata and engineer Gioacchino Luigi Mellucci rebuilt it between 1926 and 1928, and it was inaugurated in 1936. Only the Rasponi Crypt and the passage over Via Santi survived.

The palace is the seat of the Ravenna Provincial Administration. The Rasponi family chapel, never used for burials, holds a stone sphere inscribed 'sic vita pendet ab alto'. The hanging garden, with a circular fountain and neo-Gothic tower, offers a belvedere over Piazza San Francesco.

The palace stands at Piazza San Francesco 1 and now houses the Ravenna provincial administration. The Rasponi Crypt and the hanging gardens are the parts open to visitors; the offices themselves are working spaces. The garden's belvedere looks onto Piazza San Francesco and links to the terrace over the 1839 vault spanning Via Santi.

The crypt's floor mosaic, made in the 6th century, was brought here from the church of San Severo in Classe after an earthquake destroyed it. It shows ornamental motifs and animals such as hens, geese, ram heads and snakes, coloured with enamels. The stone sphere in the middle room carries the inscription sic vita pendet ab alto.