On the border between the provinces of Brescia, Cremona and Bergamo lies the small town of Torre Pallavicina.
The fate of the village has been linked since 1070 to the family of the Counts Barbò, in whose lands Tristano Sforza built a tower, called precisely Tristano’s Tower, for defensive purposes during the 1400s.
Also here, in the 1500s, Marquis Adalberto Marchese Pallavicino, from whom the town would later take its name, built an imposing palace, with a rather strange motivation: “…in order to no longer want to follow ungrateful princes…” and as a “…seat of idleness of peace for himself and his friends (SIBI ET AMICIS).”
This purpose is carved on the stone above the porches of the facade.
The palace constitutes one of the most distinctive examples of the mixture of an ancient stronghold with a typically military character and a 17th-century residential palace, splendid and with harmonious lines.
The park of plane and lime trees provides a unique setting for these two buildings, so different yet now complementary.
Popular tradition has it that one of the passages branching off from the tower’s basement led to the nearby castle of Soncino, but attempts put in place by the townspeople were unsuccessful, so the entrance to the tunnel was bricked up.