Page 5 - D_ReggioEmilia

Area Società | Society area 345

The structure is located in an area already occupied since the 13th
century: in 1244 the monastery of the Frati Francescani Minori was built;
however, the monks gave it around 1256, with the annexed church, to
the nuns of Santa Chiara, who remained there until 1548.
In 1845 Francesco IV d’Austria-Este decided to build in the context of
a wider intervention of urban reorganisation, a Foro Boario, to be able
to relocate there the cattle market, which, since 1788, took place in the
square of Santa Maria Maddalena (today known as Piazza Fontanesi),
and to allocate it to the reserves of Monte Annonario Perpetuo.
With the construction of the Foro Boario by Archduke Francesco IV,
the Austro-Este family would have legitimised the new agricultural role
of Reggio Emilia, as it had happened in Modena with the similar Foro
Boario by Vandelli. The construction was entrusted to the architect Pietro
Marchelli from Reggio Emilia, Professor of architecture at the Scuo-
1
la di Belle Arti Modena , son of the architect from Como Domenico
Marchelli. His first works concerned the completion or transformation
of factories started by his father: he proposed a new intervention for the
façade of the new customs building; he intervened in Palazzo Ducale
in Reggio Emilia, where the Province and the Prefecture have their
seat (now respectively known as Palazzo Salvador Allende and Palazzo del
Governo), in the San Lazzaro Hospital and Piazza Adelgonda (now Piazza
Gioberti), and radically restructured the Tempio Israelitico or the synagogue
between 1849 and 1858, collaborating with the architect Antonio Mon-
tessori; he was also part of numerous technical commissions and for years
was a member of the Consulta Comunale d’Ornato.
The project of the Foro Boario is the one in which the Marchelli’s sty-
listic individuality is more marked: he designed a large building with a
U-shaped plan consisting of a central body and two wings advancing
towards the public gardens, whereas two additional wings placed on the
extension of the longitudinal body of the central part of the building had
to contain the stairwell and service compartments. The project foresaw

1 Academy of Fine Arts.