Villa Giovannina

Near San Matteo della Decima, a few kilometres from Cento, lies Villa Giovannina, built in 1504 on a design by Sebastiano Serlio for Giovanni II Bentivoglio.

The battlements of its towers are an interesting example of the passage from medieval castle to noble residence. The land on which the villa-castle was built was given to the Bentivoglio family by the people of Persiceto as thanks for the excavation of the “Cavamento”, a water manifold which made it possible

to farm and live in vast areas of the territory towards Crevalcore.

Inside the villa, there are frescoe attributed to Guercino, carried out between 1617 and 1632. It was for this castle that the Guercino also painted the famous Aldrovandi Dog, commissioned by his friend Filippo Aldrovandi and today exhibited in museum in Pasadena, California.