Located on Via Fratelli Bandiera at number 22, it was built starting in the 18th century by the Gaifami family at the northwestern end of Brescia's northern historic center, in what was once the quadra di San Faustino.
[1][3] This was a very difficult condition to comply with, since the applicants belonged to a branch of the family from Asola, which although it too had Brescian origins from where it was probably driven out during the 14th century, the documents testifying to this had been lost over time.
[1][3] On the occasion of the Gaifami family's admission to the general council, the construction of a new aristocratic palace in the city was commissioned: it was to be built in what is now Fratelli Bandiera Street, once called the contrada dei Fiumi.
[2][5] In fact, thanks to a precario dated April 10, 1742, it can be inferred with certainty that, on that date, work had already begun on their dwelling in that contrada;[2] in this regard, in the aforementioned precario the Gaifami asked the municipal authorities for an adjustment and arrangement of the public road, “for the beginning reconstruction of our house in contrada Fiumi.”[note 2][1] It is uncertain, in any case, who may have been commissioned to design the architecture of the noble palace: the scholar Fausto Lechi advances a hypothesis and, in this sense, traces the construction of the dwelling to the figure of Ascanio Girelli,[6][7] based on repetitions of architectural schemes already known and employed in his time by Gaspare Turbini [it] and Giovanni Battista Marchetti (as, for example, in the Lechi palace in Montirone);[8] again in support of this attribution, Lechi also adds that the Girellis at the time of the work on the palace were neighbors of the Gaifami, since they lived precisely near the Palazzo Calini ai Fiumi [it].
[1] Another possible architect figure, reported this time by the scholar Paolo Guerrini, is Vincenzo Gaifami, who also had the opportunity, among other things, to direct the construction sites of the Duomo nuovo in Brescia.
[9][10] Beginning with the sure testimony of the aforementioned precarius, dating undoubtedly to 1742, Fausto Lechi states that two more years were needed to complete the building site of the palace.
On the inner facade itself, facing the same courtyard and the ramparts of the ancient city walls, there are no architectural elements worth mentioning, except for an iron balcony supported by corbels.
[2] Studies devoted to the figure of Carlo Innocenzo Carloni have pointed out, among other things, the similarity between this work and the one on the vault of the staircase of the Brühl castle [it], near Cologne, both placed in the opposite direction from the main image.
[2][16][17] The latter, in fact, is depicted to the right in the opposite direction, which sees the presence, next to the personification of Fame, of the three main arts: Painting, Architecture and Sculpture, the latter in the act of sculpting the bust of Vincenzo Gaifami.