Polli Stoppan Palacei is built in about 1500 to a design by Pietro Isabello, and renovated in the 1700s.
It was then purchased by Vittorio Polli in 1960 as a family residence.
In the year 1962, based on the design of Architect Sandro Angelini, it underwent a recovery that enhanced its unique characteristics, such as being resting directly on the rock of Città Alta, while making it habitable in the state in which it remained until the owners’ demise.
In 2009, Mrs. Anna Maria Stoppani stipulated that the building be used as the headquarters of the Polli Stoppani Foundation, a charitable organization that focuses on supporting people (with particular attention to the elderly, women, children and families in difficulty) as well as promoting culture, both in terms of recovering the local historical-artistic heritage and raising awareness of social issues, and sustaining the Museum of the Valley, Fondazione Polli Stoppani ONLUS in Zogno, the first charitable endeavor started by the founders in 1979.
In 2016, the Foundation ordered the start of renovation work on the property, a renovation that took more than a year and a half to restore the structure to a condition where it could fulfill the Foundation’s purposes.
The front of the Palazzo Polli Stoppani is four stories above ground; on the first floor, under a large stone archivolt, is a fountain matched to the left by the entrance hall.
From this, by means of an unusual Z-shaped staircase, one enters the hanging courtyard.
Visitors who enter the doorway are greeted by a copper sun made, based on a design by Sandro Angelini, using the gold leaf technique and hung over what was once a medieval fountain.
In the first-floor courtyard, on the other hand, a fountain with the sign “Great thing is water” opens, surrounded on three sides by ten columns of pietra serena.
Each floor covers 400 square meters.
The second floor, which opens to halls with ceilings covered in 18th-century frescoes, is dedicated to temporary exhibitions, while the second floor houses a valuable private collection donated by the Founders themselves with works from 1300 to 1800 and several 16th-century wooden sculptures.
The third floor is where the landlords lived: here is a living room dominated by a large fireplace, the long table where the founders dined with their relatives and friends, some niches in the walls that seem to have been made on purpose to accommodate works of art.
Today it is home to the Foundation’s institutional and operational premises.