House Museum of the Bourbon di Sorbello, Perugia

In the historical center of Perugia is the Piazza Piccinino. Here stands the House of the Bourbon di Sorbello. The house was built in the 16th century. That's new compared to many other monumental buildings in Perugia. It had various owners from the nobility until 1780, when it was acquired by the Marchesi Bourbon di Sorbello.

The entrance of the house is paved with an external wooden parquet. This type of external flooring is rare and it is perhaps the only one of its kind in all of Umbria. The blocks of wood are of turkey oak, used to dampen the noise of carriage wheels. A grand staircase grants access to the piano nobile, the main floor of the residence.

Here are frescoed vaulted ceilings, 17th and 18th century chandeliers and furnishings, a plentiful collection of art and rare books. The paintings include, among the landscapes and portraits, works by Carlo Labruzzi, Francesco Appiani, Pietro Benvenuti and Francois Fabre and other great foreign and Italian artists.

The library has more than 25,000 volumes, and rare editions, for example: Spera Mundi, an astronomical tome dated 1478, and the 1770 Encyclopedia Francaise of Diderot. There is a collection of fine porcelain including a 19th century table service by Ginori and an original 1775 set of Qianlong Chinese porcelain with the Marchesi crest.

A visit to the Palace offers up a sense of the culture and tastes of Etruscan and Umbrian nobility of the 18th-19th centuries. At the top of the residence-museum is a terrace with stunning views of Perugia and its milieu.