Casa Romei was built by the merchant Giovanni Romei around the middle of the 15th century, enlarged on the occasion of his marriage to Polissena d’Este.
The two late-Gothic courtyards, the flowery decorations running along the walls of the loggias on the piano nobile, the frescoes in the Sala della Sibille e dei Profeti, the "Studiolo" and the late fifteenth-century painted Partizze of Giovanni Romei’s apartment constitute a unique artistic corpus in Ferrara.
The rooms on the first floor were decorated in the 16th century with grotesque decorations. The Hall of Honour bears the emblems of Ippolito II d’Este, when the house was part of the Corpus Christi convent complex.
After the suppression of the convent it was acquired by the State in 1898. After a period of abandonment and substantial restoration, Casa Romei became a museum in 1953, housing the collections of frescoes detached from various suppressed churches in Ferrara such as Sant’Andrea and Santa Caterina Martire, as well as statues and tombstones and other architectural decorations from city buildings.
