The Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna is located within the former Jesuit novitiate of Sant’Ignazio [St Ignatius], built between 1728 and 1735, after a design by the Bolognese architect Alfonso Torreggiani. After Napoleon’s troops entered Bologna in 1796 and the suppression of the religious orders, the Accademia Clementina, with the new name of the Accademia di Belle Arti, began to collect numerous assets from the suppressed institutions; because more space was needed, in 1803 it was moved from Palazzo Poggi, which had in the meantime become the seat of the University, to the nearby complex of Sant’Ignazio.
The original religious building was expanded in the years 1914-1920, with the addition of the Corridor leading to the large octagonal hall (the work of architect Edoardo Collamarini, under the direction of Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri), and after World War II, with the construction of the Salone del Rinascimento [Renaissance Hall]. The museum’s current appearance is due to the renovations carried out between the 1960s and 1974 by architect Leone Pancaldi, under the guidance of the then director Cesare Gnudi.
It was on this occasion that today’s entrance staircase was built in the space of the old chapel known as the Noviziato, frescoed with the Gloria di sant’Ignazio (Glory of St Ignatius), the founding saint of the Society of Jesus, by Jesuit painter Giuseppe Barbieri, a follower of Andrea Pozzo.
The inner courtyard of the Pinacoteca houses the sandstone cistern made in 1587 by Francesco Morandi, known as the Terribilia. In 1886, it was moved from the Giardino dei Semplici in the Palazzo Comunale, during the construction work of what is today the Sala Borsa [Exchange Hall]..
