Palazzo d'Arco and Its Zodiac Room
Most visitors walk straight past the neoclassical facade of Palazzo d'Arco on the piazza of the same name, not realising it contains one of the most extraordinary fresco cycles in northern Italy — a late-Gothic Zodiac Room by Giovanni Maria Falconetto painted around 1520 that was sealed up and only rediscovered in the 20th century.
The Zodiac Room
Each of the twelve zodiac signs is painted with its associated human 'children' — the people born under that sign going about their trades and pleasures. The figures are vivid, idiosyncratic and full of period detail: a Virgo section shows scribes and scholars; Aries brings soldiers and butchers.
The room was part of a demolished wing of an earlier palace and was literally bricked in when the current neoclassical building was constructed in the 18th century. Its accidental preservation means the colours are startlingly fresh.
The Rest of the Palace
The palace is still furnished as it was when the last Count d'Arco died in 1973 and left it to a foundation — silver on the table, books open on the desk, hunting trophies on the walls. It feels less like a museum than a house whose owners just stepped out.
The kitchen is particularly evocative, with its original copper batterie, ceramic stove and larder shelves. Guided tours in Italian run at set times; an English leaflet is available.
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