Palazzo Re Enzo
Brick Gothic hall raised as a war-machine depot, later a king's gilded prison for over two decades.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna starts with the palace's ground floor, finished in 1246 as an open, unfurnished municipal garage built to store siege engines and the city's war banner cart. It follows what changed three years later, when Bolognese troops captured Enzo, king of Sardinia and son of Emperor Frederick the Second, at the battle of Fossalta in 1249, and the city needed somewhere fit for a royal prisoner rather than an ordinary cell. The guide traces the strange life Enzo reportedly led inside, moving freely by day and receiving guests, against the legend of what happened to him each night. Look up at the ceiling of the room above you as you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.