The Palazzo delle Albere is a curious building — a Renaissance fortified villa with a square plan, corner towers, and a moat, built in the 1530s by the Madruzzo prince-bishops as a country house on what was then the southern edge of Trento. The four towers and the surrounding water gave it the defensive look of a small castle, but the painted interior — covered in 16th-century frescoes of grotesques, allegorical figures, and classical mythology — is purely a Renaissance villa.
The building stands at the entry to the Le Albere district, the new neighbourhood that grew up around the MUSE, and now houses temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. Even when closed it is worth a walk around the moat and the surrounding gardens.