Two minutes southeast of Corpus Domini, the Palazzo Schifanoia – the “Palace of Joy” – at Via Scandiana 23 (Tues-Sun 9am-7pm; L8000/4.13) is one of the grandest of Ferrara’s palaces. It belonged to the Este family, and Cosimo Tura’s frescoes inside transplanted their court to Arcadia. In the marvellous Salone dei Mesi (the “rooms of the months”), the blinds are kept closed to protect the colours, and the room seems silent and empty compared with what’s happening on the walls, which are split into three bands. Borso features in many of the court scenes, on the lowest band, surrounded by friends and hunting dogs, along with groups of musicians, weavers and embroiderers with white rabbits nibbling the grass at their feet. Above, apiece section is topped with a sign of the zodiac and, above that, various mythological scenes. On nearby Corso della Giovecca, at no. 170, the Palazzina di Marfisa d’Este (Tues-Sun 9.30am-1pm & 3-6pm; L4000/2.07), has more frescoes, this time by Filippi, and although its gloomy interior is less impressive than the Schifanoia complex, in summer the loggia and orange grove are a welcome refuge from the heat. In the other direction, to the south, the Palazzo di Lodovico Il Moro , Via XX Settembre 124, (Tues-Sun 9am-7.30pm; summer Saturdays 9am-10.30pm; L8000/4.13) holds the city’s well-organized archeological museum, with finds from Spina, the Graeco-Etruscan seaport and trading colony near Commachio, displayed together with a dugout canoe from one of the prehistoric lake villages in the Po Delta.

There are some more impressive palaces north of the castello , along and around Corso Ercole I d’Este – titled after Ercole I, who succeeded to the throne in 1441 after his father died, probably poisoned, and who promptly disposed of anyone likely to pose a threat. His reputation for coldness attained him the obloquy “North Wind” and “Diamond”, but he certainly got things done, consolidating his power by marrying Eleanor of Aragon, daughter of the Spanish King of Naples, and laying out the northern quarter of the city, the so-called “Herculean Addition”, on such a grand scale that Ferrara was tagged the first modern city in Europe. He wasn’t a puritanical ruler either; writers of the time describe grand events consisting of many hours of feasting, with sugar castles full of meat set up for the crowd to storm. The Palazzo dei Diamanti , a little way down the Corso on the left, titled after the diamond-shaped bricks that stud its facade, was at the heart of Ercole’s town-plan and is nowadays used for temporary modern art exhibitions as well as being home to the Pinacoteca Nazionale (Tues, Wed, Fri & Sat 9am-2pm, Sun 9am-1pm, Thurs 9am-7pm; L8000/4.13), the Museo Michelangelo Antonioni (daily 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; L4000/2.07), and the Museo del Risorgimento e della Resistenza (Mon-Sat 9am-2pm & 3-7pm, Sun 9am-noon & 3.30-6.30pm; L3000/1.55). You can safely give the last a miss, and, at the moment, the Museo Antonioni holds only a rather unexciting collection of the film director’s paintings but will eventually be a museum dealing with his pivotal role in Italian cinema. The Pinacoteca, however, holds works from the Ferrara and Bologna schools in rooms with ornately decorated wooden ceilings, notably paintings by Dossi, Garofalo and Guercino, and a spirited St Christopher by “Il Bastianino” (Sebastiano Filippi). Around the corner, at Corso Porta Mare 9, the Palazzo Massari (daily 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; L4000/2.07) has a small photographic gallery and the Documentario della Metafisica – a collection of transparencies of work by the Scuola Metafisica, the proto-surrealist group founded here by Giorgio de’ Chirico in 1917. However, most of the impressive palace is given over to the Museo Boldini (daily 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; L8000/4.13) and the Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (daily 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; L4000/2.07), both housing evenhandedly brain-numbing collections of work by local nineteenth-century artists.