A civic villa in Zola Predosa, near Bologna, that can be booked for meetings, training days, conferences, company events and civil ceremonies, with a main hall for about 80 people and several smaller rooms. This is Villa Edvige Garagnani, a late eighteenth-century house run by the municipality as a cultural hub.
Seminars and company events
The villa rents rooms for courses, meetings, conferences and corporate events. Use is open to private initiatives without a commercial purpose, which includes training sessions and company gatherings. The second floor is the working floor: the large Salone Edvige is described by the town as suited to meetings and congress-style events, and it is surrounded by seven side rooms for workshops, training groups, small meetings or breakout sessions that run alongside a plenary in the hall.
Weddings and receptions
Civil ceremonies are a listed use. The ground floor has a through loggia decorated with neoclassical frescoes, and the town presents it as a setting for civil rites. Ceremonies can also take place in the outdoor areas that the villa allows. The rental rules say events are held without catering, so a wedding here means the ceremony itself; any reception has to be arranged elsewhere.
Rooms and capacities
The Salone Edvige measures about 80 square meters on the second floor and holds roughly 80 people. It has a motorized screen and a Full HD projector. Four smaller rooms on the same floor are available for hire: Sala Nicolò (20 square meters, up to 10 people), Sala Gaspare (23 square meters, up to 12), Sala Battista (17 square meters, up to 8) and Sala Cristoforo (37 square meters, parquet floor, up to 26). Restrooms, including accessible ones, are on the floor. The first floor has six further rooms used as offices, meeting rooms or classrooms, where the coworking space and other organizations are based.
Equipment on site includes a mobile projector, a Full HD projector, a 65-inch touch screen on a trolley for collaborative sessions, a 4K webcam and a microphone for remote meetings or live streaming, a mixer with two speakers and a portable amplification kit for talks outdoors in the gardens, and a whiteboard. Flip charts and markers are not included. Free Wi-Fi is available without a login.
The rental is available per room, for the hall with the loggia and permitted outdoor areas, or for all floors and permitted outdoor spaces together, for half days or full days. Setup and teardown time count within the booked hours.
Catering
Events are rented without catering under the town's rules. Organizers should plan lunches and refreshments off site, and confirm with the villa what is allowed on the day.
History and setting
Villa Edvige Garagnani is a bourgeois house of the second half of the eighteenth century, also called the Villa dei Sindaci because its last residents, Emilio Giusti and Ferdinando Garagnani, both served as mayor. It takes its name from Edvige Baldi Randi, who brought the property in her dowry. After a restoration project funded by the European Union, the villa became a cultural center beside the Parco Giardino Campagna. Today it houses a coworking and business incubator space, the Centro Studi Ville Bolognesi, the Punto del Gusto and the office of the Consorzio del Pignoletto, the body promoting the local DOC wine.
Getting there
The villa is at Via A. Masini 11 in Zola Predosa. A large free car park sits by the roundabout on Via Masini, with a safe pedestrian crossing. On site parking is reserved for drivers with disabilities. The building has no architectural barriers, with a large lift and accessible restrooms.
