The degli Oddi’s Palace, then Marini Clarelli and nowadays House-museum, is built in rione di Porta Santa Susanna, in the Perugia heart, at Numbers 84 in Via dei Priori. The building is erected on a square side called “Piazza degli Oddi” until the end of the Nineteenth century, where during the Middle Ages the family houses already stood out. The composition of the various built units of the present building reveals hints of a long construction history, including a surviving Etruscan walls segment.
The Guido degli Oddi’s purchase of another building in 1444, including a tower and a vegetable garden, is a significative moment for the unification of various building in a unique structure. In the Eighteenth century, trying to create an appropriate building along the lines of the new social class family level, were acquired and demolished houses on the opposite street side, creating a uniform square layout. With new spaces coming from the street changes, the building took the actual shape. It echoes Renaissance severe motif with an airy and increased perspective. The main facade was completed in 1768.
From the Renaissance building remains the gate on the ground floor between the atrium and the Entrance hall, where you can admire the Sixteenth-century-cotto tile floor and the ceiling coffer. The wall top strip is decorated by Seventeeth-century frescoes attributed to Silla Piccinini and Pietro Rancanelli, figuring “degli Oddi’s family military ventures”. In the adjacent rooms, where nowadays there are the Library (modern fund) and the historical Archive, are clear some pictorial decoration of the second half of the Sixteenth century. The hall opens up to a three-rounded-arch loggia realised around the half of the Eighteenth century, later divided by a partition wall. The vault painting were commissioned by Francesco degli Oddi in 1819, due to the Austrian Emperor Francis I’s stay with his wife Caroline Charlotte Augusta and the daughter Caroline.
The Entrance Hall of the ground floor is the complete proof of the Sixteenth-century building, thanks to the cotto tile floor and the beam ceiling. The wall top strip was elegantly decorated at the beginning of the Seventeenth century with frescoes attributed by Francesco Santi to Silla Piccinini (firstly documented in Perugia in 1563) and Pietro Rancanelli (working in Umbria between 1592 and 1602) figuring degli Oddi’s family military ventures.
The loggia overlooks to the garden that once extended until via Pellini with terracing supported by containment walls cultivated as vegetables garden. The actual look – with two symmetrical flowerbeds delimited by privet hedges- comes from the modifies during the Fifties, then improved with various tree plantings.
