In the historic center of Portocannone stands one of the most fascinating buildings in the entire province of Campobasso: Palazzo Carlo Diego Cini or Tanasso. Built between 1735 and 1742 at the behest of Baron Carlo Diego Cini, a nobleman originally from Guglionesi, the palace represents a rare example of 18th-century Molisian patrician architecture, now protected by law as a property of historical and artistic interest.
The structure, made entirely of exposed brick, is built on three levels around an inner courtyard. The ground floor houses the warehouses, once used as a granary, cellar and oil mill, which tell of the centrality of the palace in the family’s agricultural life. The second floor holds frescoed rooms furnished with period furniture, while the second is embellished with a loggia overlooking the garden, lending lightness and harmony to the imposing complex.
The exterior appearance is reminiscent of a fortress thanks to the sturdy corner buttresses, completed in the early twentieth century on the initiative of the Tanasso family, owners of the building since 1835 and still guardians of its memory. The interior, on the other hand, reveals a refined and cultured atmosphere that moves between the 19th and early 20th centuries. As you ascend the main staircase, you reach an antechamber decorated with mottos and figures, where you can breathe in the charm of the time.
Prominent among the works of art present are frescoes by Ugo Sforza, a painter from Teramo who decorated the rooms in the 1930s with mythological subjects inspired by Rubens and D’Annunzio. The drawing room houses the “Rape of the Leucippides,” while a mighty male nude with horse, probably depicting Hippolytus, stands out in the study.
The spiritual heart of the palace is the private chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, where mass in honor of the saint is still celebrated on the first Sunday in October. The attic, inhabited only during the wars by German and British soldiers, preserves small signs of their passage, including a door with meal times written in chalk and a charcoal drawing of a female face.
Palazzo Carlo Diego Ciniis more than a building: it is a journey through time that tells stories of nobility, art, devotion and daily life, suspended between architectural elegance and historical memory.