The palace belonged to the noble Cornazzani family and was built in the 15th century, incorporating the remains of previous buildings, in late Gothic style.

Originally the building had belonged to the aristocratic Beccaria family and passed to the Cornazzani in the 16th century through marriage; the Cornazzani were a lineage of Parma origin who served Filippo Maria Visconti for a long time first and then the Sforza, thus obtaining Milanese citizenship, and of which a branch settled in Pavia.

Later the building was inhabited, at different times, by the professor Contardo Ferrini, by the poet Ada Negri and by a young Albert Einstein; the latter stayed there with his family between 1895 and 1896, a period in which his father Hermann ran a factory manufacturing electric machines in Pavia.

[3][4] The palace is structured on two courtyards: the first, dating back to the 15th century, has a late Gothic look, with a portico equipped with typical octagonal granite columns, very common in Lombard construction of the period, and enriched by numerous frescoes.

Inside, it preserves rich fifteenth-century coffered ceilings, Baroque frescoes and a neoclassical wing[5][6]