Baburizza Palace is a very beautiful palace can be located in the V region of Chile, exactly in the city of Valparaíso, in Cerro Alegre. The exact address of the palace is Yugoslavian Walk # 176, Cerro Alegre. It is a construction dating from 1916, which has been very well preserved and is now a spectacular tourist destination. This beautiful Palace is located in a city with a great history and that has been growing and gaining importance since its inception, Valparaiso is known as the first commercial port of the country, has been growing to become a World Cultural Heritage City, this Small town that only started as a couple of houses between the hills has shown that it is not necessary to be a big city to obtain great titles and be of great importance for the country.
Baburizza Palace was originally property of the Zanelli family who asked the architects Arnaldo Barison and Renato Schiavon to build this palace in 1916. the businessman Ottorino Zanelli was an Italian emigrant, originally from Savona, who arrived in Tarapacá, he met and married Margarita Morales with whom he lived in the villa for only a year since he died, his descendants were numerous, after the businessman dies, his widow sold the Palace to Pascual Baburizza, and left to Italy. Pascal Baburizza arrived in Chile when he was just a teenager, he was seventeen years old, when he left his village Klocep located in the Dubravnic region, at that time the Yugoslav kingdom was submitted by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When he arrived in Chile, he worked in the saltpeter trade, in the ports of Antofagasta and Iquique. His dedication led him to emerge and he became the owner of the Lautaro Office. Then he moved to Valparaíso, and in 1925 he acquired the chalet, being a businessman he made innumerable trips to Europe where he acquired a lot of works of art, apart from business in commerce, he was also passionate about the countryside and banking, he worked in the Yugoslav bank of Chile. He never formed a family, so he did not have direct descendants, the closest were his nephews, Baburizza was a lonely man. Chile, which was his second home since he never return to his native country. In his innumerable trips he bought a great quantity of paintings and he gathered a great collection, he was an art lover.
That is why in his testament he left his entire artistic collection to the city of Valparaíso. The government acquired the Baburizza Palace in 1971 to become the seat of the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Valparaíso, which seems to have been designed for this because of its greatness. This palace has five floors and has two thousand square meters of construction. in 1979 Baburizza Palace is declared a National Monument.
This majestic construction was made under the influence of modernism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which was what prevailed at the time. Art Nouveau is very noticeable on the facade of the building, it has a large number of towers and columns. The architects Barison and Schiavon arrived in Chile after the earthquake of 1906, just when the country was in full reconstruction thus ensuring a work with which to demonstrate their knowledge is why they are dedicated to build a chalet with so much style.
With the best eclectic style, highlight the mansards, bow windows or arched windows and lots of terraces, in the wooden doors you can admire the carving they have and their copper cladding. In the dining room you can see a beautiful marble fireplace in the best Renaissance style, which has a beautiful decoration of medallions and braids on relieve
This was installed by order of Baburizza when he acquired the building, this made many other changes between them, one of the terraces was changed to a large living room, where I installed the fireplace, I also added one more floor to the building, and in the highest part the crown with a beautiful tower.
In the history of the art of Valparaiso highlights the painter Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, who in the nineteenth century, founded the salons of painting, having enough followers the artist founded the Museum of Painting, in the headquarters of the Victoria Theater until it was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. Unfortunately the city remained without an art museum for many years, it was not until the forties of the last century that the painter Camilo Mori together with the writer Augusto D'Halmar took the initiative to found the museum again with the name of Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Valparaíso. Gathering all the surviving paintings to the earthquake that had been saved, plus those that were donated by Baburizza and those that they themselves possessed, this one worked for several years without an own headquarters, moving constantly, until the year 1971 when the city acquired the Palace of Baburizza and I place it there.
The Baburizza collection dating from 1840 to 1930 was organized by the painter Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma from 1840 to 1960. The Chilean collection that the painter Camilo Mori together with the writer Augusto D'Halmar also collects in this imposing museum from 1870 to 1950, in these collections we can appreciate all kinds of landscapes, portraits, figures, still lifes, seascapes and a great variety of compositions. Among the works of the collection donated by Baburizza are those of famous artists such as Eugene Lous Boudin, Felix Ziem, Julio Romero de Torres and some others. In the exhibition of the museum you can see a beautiful collection of renowned painters from Europe where they reflect the changes that art went through between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are exhibited works from national and foreign artists, among the national artists we have Juan Francisco González, Pedro Lira, Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma and Nemesio Antúnez, among others, among foreign artists we can name some as Thomas Thomas Somerscales, Johan Moritz Rugendas , Giovanni Mochi and Desiree Chassin Trubert.
This is a very beautiful building full of history and art, every arquitectonic detail is an artwork beside the paint collection. The view, the history really worth visiting just to experience the moment inside the Baburizza Palace imagining a period gone by.