The palace was built at the end of Place delle Erbe by a
branch of the famous Maffei family and is the best and most
splendid conclusion for this two thousand years old place,
originally a Roman Forum and now and ever the real heart of Verona.
An unusual baroque scenery for a city which alway liked pure Classic
style.
But the branch of the Maffeis, known as “di piazza” (of
the square) from the place where they used to carry out their
banking activities, wanted to show here their might and wealth and
built here this palace in 1668 “on
a sketch coming from Rome”.
The proof of their might and their
wealth. We don’t know the name of the architect, but his skill
can be seen in the whole structure and in the impressive
winding staircase leading from the cellars to the terrace,
which rests only step on step without the usual central column.
This incredible staircase spins up from the deep meanderings of the
palace, which is still revealing evidence of ancient Roman buildings:
columns, altars, capitals. The last discoveries are the altar dedicated
to “Iovi
Optimo Mazimo Ordo Veronensium” to
Jupiter Optimus Maximus from the Council of Verona, and the
remains of a hanging garden with cypresses, lemon trees,
orange trees, cedars and fountains. Inscriptions, mottoes
and aphorisms decorate the courtyard: “Continenza
non affluentia”, a modest welfare and not an immense wealth;
or: “Prochulhinc estote profani”, stay away from here,
foreign people, and finally: “Maiora ausuri si maior census”,
ready for great exploits if there will be more wealth. Wisdom,
pretentiousness, arrogance, and audacity of those who feel
themselves at the top. Inside the palace there are wonderful
frescoed rooms, rich of stuccoes and “atmosphere”.
The Restaurant Maffei offers its hospitality in this milieu,
full of memories and history of a family and of a city.
Up above, on the balustrade which closes the hanging garden,
a succession of Olympian gods like a Opera ballet of the
seventeenth century: from right to left Minerva, Apollo Mercury,
Venus and Jupiter and, at least, a dazzling white Hercules,
while in marble, instead in tuff.
Capitolium (Ist Century B.C.) The Temple, dedicated to the
Capitolian Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), was built beyond
the main street and on the longitudinal axis of the Forum.
It was a building with a high podium, prostyle, hexastyle, peripteral
and closed on the back side by a blind wall. The entrance was through
a wide flight of steps which connected the main street with the upper
place (closed on three sides) and with the pronaos it the Temple.
The foundations are in pozzuolana bricks, very interesting
is the reticulum under the pronaus, made of big dice connected
among them and the perimeter through narrow and small walls.
The empty parts have been filled with tamping material (layers
of mud and stones). The cells of the Temple and the perimetral arcade
rest on cryptoportica. The Temple (in Dorci style) had fluted columns
(about 8 m. high) made of tuff stones covered with a thick layer of
white stucco which looked like marble.
The basements, in Attic style, are in calcareous rock from
Valpolicella and the capitals, in Doric-Tuscanic style, are
in tuff. An inscription of 380 A.D., in which the Governor of
Venetia and Istria relates that he has brought a staue from
the Capitolium to the Forum for preventing thefts demonstrates
that in the IV. Century A.D. the temples were already in
ruin and this for the ascent of the Christianity. In the V. Century
the temples were plundered up to the foundations for obtaining building
material, above all bricks.
The palace was built at the end of Place delle Erbe by a
branch of the famous Maffei family and is the best and most
splendid conclusion for this two thousand years old place,
originally a Roman Forum and now and ever the real heart of Verona.
An unusual baroque scenery for a city which alway liked pure Classic
style. 
The proof of their might and their
wealth. We don’t know the name of the architect, but his skill
can be seen in the whole structure and in the impressive
winding staircase leading from the cellars to the terrace,
which rests only step on step without the usual central column.
This incredible staircase spins up from the deep meanderings of the
palace, which is still revealing evidence of ancient Roman buildings:
columns, altars, capitals. The last discoveries are the altar dedicated
to “Iovi
Optimo Mazimo Ordo Veronensium” to
Jupiter Optimus Maximus from the Council of Verona, and the
remains of a hanging garden with cypresses, lemon trees,
orange trees, cedars and fountains. Inscriptions, mottoes
and aphorisms decorate the courtyard: “Continenza
non affluentia”, a modest welfare and not an immense wealth;
or: “Prochulhinc estote profani”, stay away from here,
foreign people, and finally: “Maiora ausuri si maior census”,
ready for great exploits if there will be more wealth. Wisdom,
pretentiousness, arrogance, and audacity of those who feel
themselves at the top. Inside the palace there are wonderful
frescoed rooms, rich of stuccoes and “atmosphere”. 
The Restaurant Maffei offers its hospitality in this milieu,
full of memories and history of a family and of a city.
Up above, on the balustrade which closes the hanging garden,
a succession of Olympian gods like a Opera ballet of the
seventeenth century: from right to left Minerva, Apollo Mercury,
Venus and Jupiter and, at least, a dazzling white Hercules,
while in marble, instead in tuff.
Capitolium (Ist Century B.C.) The Temple, dedicated to the
Capitolian Triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), was built beyond
the main street and on the longitudinal axis of the Forum.
It was a building with a high podium, prostyle, hexastyle, peripteral
and closed on the back side by a blind wall. The entrance was through
a wide flight of steps which connected the main street with the upper
place (closed on three sides) and with the pronaos it the Temple. 
The foundations are in pozzuolana bricks, very interesting
is the reticulum under the pronaus, made of big dice connected
among them and the perimeter through narrow and small walls.
The empty parts have been filled with tamping material (layers
of mud and stones). The cells of the Temple and the perimetral arcade
rest on cryptoportica. The Temple (in Dorci style) had fluted columns
(about 8 m. high) made of tuff stones covered with a thick layer of
white stucco which looked like marble.
The basements, in Attic style, are in calcareous rock from
Valpolicella and the capitals, in Doric-Tuscanic style, are
in tuff. An inscription of 380 A.D., in which the Governor of
Venetia and Istria relates that he has brought a staue from
the Capitolium to the Forum for preventing thefts demonstrates
that in the IV. Century A.D. the temples were already in
ruin and this for the ascent of the Christianity. In the V. Century
the temples were plundered up to the foundations for obtaining building
material, above all bricks. 
