Palazzo Pepoli - Museo della Storia di Bologna

About this audio guide

The guide to Palazzo Pepoli in Bologna opens with a question: why would a man just back from seven years on the run build his family's grandest house on the very street that had turned on him. It follows the banker Romeo Pepoli, once richer than Bologna's own government, driven into exile in thirteen twenty-one along with his sons, scattering first to Ferrara and then to the papal court at Avignon while enemies at home settled old scores. His son Taddeo, trained as a lawyer, waited out the chaos and slipped home to outlast every faction that followed.