PLACE TO VISIT
Palazzo Festari
Palazzo Festari
The building dates back to the second half of the XVIIIth century and it boasts off architectural elements which make it unique and outstanding: the protruding façade over the Corso, the hall, the side bordering the courtyard, the “brolo”and the welcoming door surmounted by a window in the centre with a trilobed balcony. On the northern wall of the “sottoportico”(the arcade below),there are elegant twinned arches which introduce the visitor to the main imposing staircase. You cannot help noticing and being stunned by the original floor of river pebbles and where there are still the two stone lanes for the transit of the carriages.
On the first floor there are two impressive halls devoted to conferences and lectures. On the second floor a hall devoted to congresses and meetings with 150 seats, provided with a production room and all the equipment for videoconferences. From the gracious courtyard of the palace you get in Galleria dei Nani (the Dwarves’Gallery), an area conceded on request by the Municipality for artistic, cultural, or social events. From the same courtyard you are welcome to visit the Paleontological Museum “D.Dal Lago”. Paleontological Museum “D.Dal Lago”.
Palazzo Festari is the seat of the Palazzo Festari Fundation which has as its main purpose, to offer knowledge, means and strategies apt to develop in the Valley chances and ways of economic, social and cultural growth.
The Halls of Palazzo Festari
Hall of Meetings ”Giovanni Soster”Named after Giovanni Soster (1814-1893), a historian and memorialist who was born and lived in Valdagno, the hall has a capacity of 150 seats and is provided with a production room with all the equipment for videoconferences. Just think that when still a very young boy Soster collected and lined carefully an impressive amount of texts, articles, documents and official Bills concerning the chronicle and the history of Valdagno and its surroundings. His numerous manuscripts which make up the Memories of Valdagno are considered nowadays san extraordinarily rich source of news and information useful for scholars who are interested in the local history back in the 18th century. Soster was also the author of several commemorative and historic publications.
Hall of Conferences ”Francesco Rubini” A doctor and a traveller born inValdagno in 1766, to whom this hall was devoted. A doctor and a traveller born inValdagno in 1766, to whom this hall was devoted. After the Master in Medicine obtained in Padua in 1788,he moved on to Pisa.
Rubini travelled long across Italy visiting the main towns and for some time he even lived in Paris. In 1802 he was appointed by the Emperor Francis I of Austria Inspector Doctor of the thermal springs of Recoaro, duty which he accomplished up to his death which occurred in Valdagno in 1827. He is also renown to be the author of some important studies of medicine, meteorology and fossil science.
According to Bernardo Bocchese’s chronichles he used to exempt from paying those who addressed themselves to him because in need of being healed with the waters.
Hall of Conferences “Bernardo Bocchese” (1755-1833): Doctor and traveller he was born and grew up in Valdagno where he reported faithfully facts of ordinary life as well as the outstanding political events of his time.
Doctor and traveller he was born and grew up in Valdagno where he reported faithfully facts of ordinary life as well as the outstanding political events of his time. He made friends with Doctor Francesco Rubini and he met with the middle-class élite of Valdagno which enabled him to gather a large amount of information which he wrote down in his tentative Italian just for the sake of handing on to the posterity the memory of the events and the people of his age.
His many manuscripts by now partly published,represent like Giovanni Soster’s ones a real mine of information and data for the historical research.