The noble Bevilacqua family moved from Verona to Ferrara in 1430. With his arrival in the city, Count Cristin Francesco acquired a prominent position in the Ferrara court and had a sumptuous mansion built very close to the Ducal Palace.
Bonifacio Bevilacqua, at the beginning of the 17th century, wanted for the palace a beautiful façade with “plastic ornamentation in the antique style”: decorated with inscriptions, busts, panoplies and stone statues in relief, the new elevation had Roman palaces as models. The interior is characterized by the presence of a few elements dating back to the first phase of construction, others that belong to the 17th century (such as the monumental staircase), and still others to the 19th-century renovation due to the later owners, the Costabili family.
In 2006, after careful renovations, the building became the headquarters of the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Ferrara.