Maccaferri Palace
Beauty and Avant-garde
I Portici Hotel is located in the historic center of Bologna and occupies the five floors of Maccaferri Palace, a fascinating late nineteenth-century building, set between Via Indipendenza, Scalinata del Pincio and Parco della Montagnola.
The building was designed by Attilio Muggia at the end of the nineteenth century, recognized as one of the most original Italian architects and engineers, because in his works the structural and design rigor combined with architectural quality and creativity, with the use of new techniques and innovative materials, such as reinforced concrete.


Maccaferri Palace was designed in the philosophy of synthesis of technology and aesthetics, in conjunction with the inauguration of the new Railway Station and the construction of the new Via Indipendenza, opened in 1888 as the main link between Piazza Maggiore and the station itself.
The Palace’s owner was Engineer Giuseppe Maccaferri who, together with Attilio Muggia, planned the construction of a building between Via dell’Indipendenza and the Giardini della Montagnola. The first stone was laid on April, 6th 1896 and the works lasted just one year.
A structure that respects the territory in which it develops, both from the morphological and from the socio-cultural point of view, in that, in addition to private residences, public functions, a restaurant and a café-chantant were also provided.
In the 1950s, after the end of the Second World War, Maccaferri Palace was sold and became a compartment for an electricity company until 2007.
In that year it opened I Portici Hotel Bologna, after a careful and skilful restoration that brought light the over 1,500 square meters of Liberty paintings in the halls and on the ceilings of the five floors of the building. Entering the Palace, one immediately perceives respect for the original beauty of the structure, which is enhanced and accentuated by the minimal design of the furniture and the suggestive plays of light.

Eden Kursaal Theater

Ex Ice House – XIV c.

Entering in the medieval Ex Ice House in not hard relive the ancient atmospheres, when this place, that today is one of most suggestive in Bologna, was lit by the dim light of torches and oil lamps and kept, between straw and snow, foodstuffs of Rocca di Galliera, the fourteenth-century residence of the papal legate. Its tunnels run long and narrow to the Parco della Montagnola, starting from the bowels of Maccaferri Palace, home of I Portici Hotel, which was annexed to the early 1900s. It has gone through over seven centuries of history, without ever betraying its original characteristics. Careful restoration work has made it even more attractive, transforming it into an environment on two levels, separated by a transparent floor that can guarantee great lightness to the entire structure.