With the fall of the Este family, the delizia fell into disrepair, passing from hand to hand and slowly falling into ruin. Around the beginning of the 19th century, the building was even mortgaged and then sold to Count Luigi Gulinelli, who began restoration work in 1818. From
1860 onwards, the Gulinelli family had it equipped with marvellous stables for breeding racehorses, erected in front of the delizia, and also modified the original layout of the old mansion, raising the wings so that the tower was squarer, and giving the building a square plan structure.
The building remained as such until the Second World
War, when the bombing that hit the entire Argentine area in 1944 again distorted its profile.
The surrounding land was cultivated with vineyards and cereals, and there was no shortage of game that the noble lords loved to hunt.
Today Benvignante has a rectangular floor plan, as it was originally intended to be in Benvenuto degli Ordini's project, with two floors and large windows symmetrically distributed on the façade; above the round terracotta archway in the centre of the tower, the coat of arms of the Gulinelli family can be seen.
Due to its position, this residence, with its mighty crenellated central tower dominating the surrounding land, must have been conceived not only as a place of rest and recreation but also with functions of control, - rather than defence, - of the Argenta territory.
The inhabitants of the area affectionately call it "Al Turòn"
The complex cannot be visited at the moment, but it is surrounded by four hectares of land used as a park, which after the war, and especially thanks to a major recent intervention, has been restored so that the dominant elements today are the geometry of the avenues, emphasised by the rows of trees, the lawn and the water. A pathway
in the middle of a double row of young cherry trees starts in the inner courtyard and crosses a wooden pier over an oval pond and then joins the avenue that embraces the entire garden, accompanied by a row of lime trees.
In the meadow, which dominates the entire park, four cypress
poplars stand out, marking the beginning and end of the central path, and there are specimens of alder, willow and marsh cypress. The
presence of the pond is meant to evoke the waters
that dominated the area in the past and that, especially during the Renaissance period, made it possible to reach the delizia via the waterways; all around were a few houses and the dense woodland that provided rich spoils of game.
The very name 'ben veniante' alluded to the traveller's welcome to this land.
Since 1990, the Delizia property has been taken over by the Municipality of Argenta and is now part of the Argenta Ecomuseum and is looked after by the 'Torrione Delizia' association in Benvignante.
The adjacent stables and tobacco drying kiln, on the other hand, are privately owned.
In the year 2000, the Ferrara Delights, including Benvignante, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Currently, the Municipality of Argenta, with the participation of the community and local associations already involved in the Community Maps, is defining a project to consolidate the historic structure in order to make it accessible also internally, with the aim of revitalising the ancient rural village and enhancing its value within the circuit of the Delizie Estensi.
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