The Palazzina Majani is a small Art Nouveau [1] palace located on Via Indipendenza #4 in central Bologna, region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Originally built in 1908 by the Majani Chocolate company, using designs of the architect Augusto Sezanne (1856–1935). The building housed both a cafe and the company offices. The second story, which now has an open balcony with only a decorative metal railing, once had an enclosed small ball-room for events. The third floor facade had more conventional windows than the glass box present now.
In the early twentieth century, this cafe, along with the caffè San Pietro across the street, hosted many of the artists in the city and visitors to the nearby Hotel Baglioni. [2]
In its day, some Italians still wary of Austrian influence to the north, derided the insertion of this architectural novelty interrupting the more staid portico facades, with its rounded protruding second floor delicately perched on leggy columns as "a Viennese chair meant to trip pedestrians", [3] or as a "pretentious braided kepi" [4]
Soon after a restructuring in a modernist style by Melchiorre Bega, the elaborate indoor decorations were destroyed by fire in 1937. At the end of the war, the facilities were occupied by British troops. The caffè Majani was closed in 1953, though the chocolate company still exists. [5] The site became a bank, and later a clothing boutique. [6]
The Pedrocchi Café is a café founded in the 18th century in central Padua, Italy. It has architectural prominence because its rooms were decorated in diverse styles, arranged in an eclectic ensemble by the architect Giuseppe Jappelli. The café has historical prominence because of its role in the 1848 riots against the Habsburg monarchy, as well as for being an attraction for artists over the last century from the French novelist Stendhal to Lord Byron to the Italian writer Dario Fo.
Palazzo d'Accursio is a palace once formulated to house major administrative offices of the city of Bologna, region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is located on the Piazza Maggiore, and is the city's Town Hall. The palace is also home to the Civic Art Collection, with paintings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century; the Museo Morandi, with the works by Giorgio Morandi; and the Biblioteca Salaborsa, the town libraries.
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Augusto Sezanne was an Italian painter, active in a Naturalist style of landscape painting. He also worked as engraver, ceramist, and even as architect.
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Anna Majani was an Italian entrepreneur. She was nicknamed "the queen of chocolate".
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