The chapel dedicated to St. Francis is an interesting testimony to the architectural and figurative culture of the second half of the 19th century and demonstrates a particular originality in full compliance with a sophisticated spatial unity. It was rebuilt in Renaissance style in the 19th century, respecting its decentralized position with respect to the country residence.
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The chapel of the palace, in fact, had always been characterized by an exceptional isolation though it was the centre of social life and a place for welcoming guests.
With a rectangular floor plan, the building consists of a single nave that ends at the presbytery, with a semicircular apse set in a contained triumphal arch. The small hemispherical dome that surmounts the presbytery and the modest dimension of the apse which still has balustrades, help to create a rather centralized space typically neo-Renaissance, in keeping with the function of intimate recollection of the building.
The interior walls which open into niches, a clear figurative neo-Renaissance system, are decorated with depictions of saints and angels and with heterogeneous embossed polychrome stucco that adorn the arches, columns and classic pilasters. Particularly notable are the smooth pilasters against the walls that divide the space and the pilasters at the corners of the chapel. These are decorated with candelabra, figures of saints inside pointed arches on Corinthian pillars and capitals in neo-Bramante style.
The horizontal band surmounting the capitals and acting as a shutter is marked by heads of saints and apostles. The chapel was frescoed by merchants that used the encaustic Etruscan technique which involved the hot treatment of the plaster, obtaining a refined gloss marble effect accentuated by the warm atmosphere of the golden walls.
