PALAZZO BEZZI PARISANI

Palazzo Parisani-Bezzi, which stands in the historical centre of Tolentino, owes its fame to Napoleon Bonaparte, who was housed there in February 1797. On the 19^th of that month he signed in one of its rooms the ‘Tolentino Treaty’ with the representatives of Pope Pius VI; this event gave the rooms where he slept and where the document was signed the name of “Napoleonic rooms”. This treaty obliged the Pope to yield up to France Avignon and the Legations of Bologna, Ferrara and Romagna, and, according to previous conventions, to pay 21 million

francs and surrender 500 codices from the Vatican Library and 100 works of art. The Pontiff deputies were frightened and influenced also by the presence, in Tolentino, of 15,000 French soldiers and by the threat of the Bonaparte to invade the Papal State. Napoleon, to intimidate them, went so far as to tear up several pages of the treaty. In May 1815 Field Marshal Bianchi also, commander of the Austrian troops quartered in Tolentino, stayed in Palazzo Parisani during the battle of “La Rancia” which was fought against the troops of Gioacchino Murat, King of Naples.

Photo: Giorgio Semmoloni