// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho did Cesare Mattei date? A count-ess.

Count Cesare Mattei
Mattei, c. 1880-1881
Born	(1809-01-11)11 January 1809 Bologna, Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)
Died	3 April 1896(1896-04-03) (aged 87) Rocchetta Mattei, Grizzana Morandi, Kingdom of Italy
Occupations	Politician writer homeopath
Known for	Founding electrohomeopathy; building Rocchetta Mattei

Count Cesare Mattei (11 January 1809 - 3 April 1896) was an Italian nobleman, politician, writer and self-taught medical practitioner. He is best known as the founder of electrohomeopathy, a 19th-century alternative medical system that combined homeopathy, herbal preparations, alchemical language and claims concerning bodily or vegetal electricity.

Born in Bologna into a wealthy family of Ferrarese origin, Mattei was among the founders of the Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna in 1837 and briefly took part in the political life of the Papal States during the revolutionary period of 1848. In 1847 he and his brother Giuseppe received the hereditary title of count from Pope Pius IX after donating family holdings near Comacchio to the Papal States. After withdrawing from politics, he acquired the ruins of the medieval Rocca di Savignano and began building Rocchetta Mattei, the eclectic castle in the Bolognese Apennines where he later lived and promoted his medical system.

Mattei's remedies attracted considerable popular attention in Italy and abroad, but they were strongly criticised by physicians and by homeopaths, particularly because the alleged electrical properties of his preparations could not be demonstrated. Historical and medical sources treat electrohomeopathy as an unvalidated or pseudoscientific medical system rather than a scientifically established therapy.

Early life, education and political career

Cesare Mattei was born in Bologna on 11 January 1809, the son of Luigi Mattei and Teresa Montignani. His family, of Ferrarese origin, belonged to the wealthy local bourgeoisie and owned property in the areas of Bologna, Budrio and Comacchio.

Mattei received an education appropriate to his social position and, like Marco Minghetti, was a pupil of the poet and scholar Paolo Costa. He developed liberal ideas but remained politically moderate and opposed to extremism. A later study of Mattei's youth, based partly on Costa's correspondence, emphasises the breadth of this private education, which included literary composition, philosophy, classical authors, visits to works of art, mathematics, astronomy and practical observation. Vannini argues that this formation helps explain the later mixture of empirical, speculative and symbolic elements in Mattei's intellectual profile.

In 1823 the Mattei family enlarged its property by acquiring the fortress of Magnavacca and the surrounding lands near Comacchio. In 1837 Mattei was one of the hundred founders of the Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna.

In 1847 he and his brother Giuseppe donated to Pius IX their holdings on the Magnavacca canal, near Comacchio. The donation had strategic value for the Papal States because of the Austrian military presence in the area, and the pope rewarded the brothers with the hereditary title of count.

During the political upheavals of 1848, Mattei was involved with the Bolognese Civic Guard, serving with the rank of lieutenant colonel and later as chief of staff. He also served with the Bolognese volunteers at the headquarters of Charles Albert of Sardinia and participated in the defence of the Veneto against the Austrian counteroffensive. On 18 May 1848 he was elected to represent the colleges of San Vitale in Bologna and Budrio in the Council of Deputies of the Papal States.

The assassination of Pellegrino Rossi and the flight of Pius IX to Gaeta in November 1848 led Mattei to abandon political life. According to the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, this period also marked the end of his friendship with Minghetti.

Rocchetta Mattei

In 1850 Mattei purchased land containing the ruins of the old Rocca di Savignano, in the upper Reno valley near Riola. On 5 November of that year he laid the first stone of the new castle, which he called the Rocchetta. He settled there permanently from 1859.

The building was initially conceived in a medievalising style, but was later enriched with architectural elements inspired by the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. Treccani states that the main phase of construction was completed in 1875, although work and alterations continued later. An archival description connects the Moorish additions to Mattei's 1854 visit to the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, London, where historical architectural displays had been installed.

The official Rocchetta Mattei site describes the castle as a labyrinth of towers, monumental staircases, reception rooms and private chambers combining neo-medieval, neo-Renaissance, Moorish and Liberty style elements. The castle became the architectural setting most closely associated with Mattei's public image and with the later memory of his electrohomeopathic enterprise.

The construction and transformation of the Rocchetta during Mattei's lifetime were also recorded by contemporary photography. The Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna describes Mattei as the inspirer and designer of the castle, assisted in its realisation by the painter Giulio Ferrari, a master builder and a group of workers who continued to work on the building throughout the count's life. It also identifies the Bolognese photographer Pietro Poppi as an important visual witness to the successive enlargements, alterations and modifications of the castle. Views of the Rocchetta appeared in Poppi's 1879 catalogue under the section "Paysages et villes"; by 1883 they formed a more substantial group, and the 1888 general catalogue of the Fotografia dell'Emilia included a section specifically devoted to a third photographic campaign of Rocchetta Mattei.

The official visitor itinerary preserves several elements reflecting Mattei's taste for historical quotation and symbolic staging. The Cortile dei Leoni is inspired by the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra, and its decorative tiles include the Torre della Visione, which also became the logo of Mattei's medicaments. The Sala della musica is presented as evidence of the Mattei family's musical interests and of documented relations between the family and Gioachino Rossini. The tomb of Mattei, installed in the chapel in accordance with his testamentary wishes, includes astral inscriptions referring to the immensity of the universe and the smallness of human life.

The courtyard of Rocchetta Mattei, the eclectic castle built by Mattei on the ruins of the Rocca di Savignano.

Family, cultural networks and succession

Mattei's family and private networks were closely connected with the later development of his medical activity, his castle and his estate. His mother, Teresa Montignani, died after a long illness. Treccani states that her death probably played an important role in strengthening Mattei's distrust of official clinical medicine and in directing him towards homeopathy and medical experimentation. The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei gives a more detailed local account, identifying the illness as breast cancer and presenting it as a decisive biographical trauma in his turn towards medical study.

His brother Giuseppe Mattei was central to the family background of the Rocchetta. Giuseppe married Carolina Brunetti, whose family owned land in the Savignano area. According to the Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei, this connection may have contributed to Cesare Mattei's discovery of the site where he later built the Rocchetta.

The Mattei family's social and cultural network also connected Cesare Mattei with figures of the Italian artistic and political world. The official visitor itinerary of Rocchetta Mattei states that the Sala della musica recalls the family's musical interests and its documented relations with Gioachino Rossini. Surviving correspondence further documents this connection: in an autograph letter written in Paris on 15 December 1863, Rossini addressed Count Luigi Mattei, Giuseppe Mattei's son and Cesare's nephew, who was then following Rossini's Italian property affairs while the composer was living in France. Luigi Mattei later became central to the inheritance crisis surrounding Cesare Mattei's estate.

Mattei never married. His nephew Luigi Mattei, son of Giuseppe and initially regarded as his likely heir, was co-holder of many family properties. In 1887-1888 unsuccessful financial operations by Luigi caused a severe crisis in the family estate: several properties were put up for auction and even the Rocchetta was placed at risk. Cesare Mattei consequently disinherited Luigi and relied increasingly on his collaborator Mario Venturoli, whom he adopted in 1888.

Mario Venturoli, later known as Mario Venturoli-Mattei, had been involved in the administration of the electrohomeopathic business and in the management of Mattei's affairs. The Gruppo Studi Cesare Mattei describes him as the accountant of the central electrohomeopathic depot in Bologna and states that he was adopted by Mattei in recognition of the assistance he gave during the financial crisis caused by Luigi Mattei.

In 1889, when Mattei was about eighty years old, Maria Bonaiuti was born from his relationship with Maria Albina Bonaiuti, known as Agrippina, the housekeeper of the Rocchetta. Despite this, Mattei maintained Mario Venturoli as his universal heir, while recommending in his wills that Maria should be treated with particular care as his daughter.

In 1894 Venturoli married Sofia Condescu, a Romanian woman. The following year, in the context of Mattei's old age and growing conflicts around the inheritance, the count accused Condescu of attempting to poison him with Turkish coffee, expelled both her and Venturoli from the castle and disinherited them.

Electrohomeopathy

After leaving politics, Mattei turned increasingly toward the study and practice of homeopathy. He had no medical degree, but had long been attracted to medical science. Treccani notes that his interest was probably strengthened by his mother's death and by his distrust of official clinical medicine.

Mattei called his system elettromiopatia, while it later became commonly known as elettromeopatia or electrohomeopathy. It drew on homeopathy, phytotherapy, alchemical language and magnetism, and went beyond the principles of Samuel Hahnemann concerning similars and dilutions. Mattei promoted it as a "new science" and claimed that it could treat a large number of diseases, particularly cancer.

The doctrine was never presented in a scientifically precise form. According to Treccani, it appears to have rested on older humoral and temperamental ideas and on Mattei's belief that different parts of the organism contained positive and negative electrical halves, whose equilibrium determined health. His remedies included internal and external preparations, compound homeopathic products and so-called "vegetable electric" liquids. Their composition and method of preparation were kept secret.

The Science Museum Group records a surviving medicine chest of Mattei's electro-homeopathic treatments made in Bologna between 1871 and 1885. The collection description notes that Mattei believed fermented plants emitted electrical energy that could cure illness and that the large bottles were labelled by colours such as red, green, white, yellow and blue, leaving the actual ingredients undisclosed.

Mattei's electro-homeopathic treatments, made in Bologna between 1871 and 1885, now in the Science Museum Group Collection.

Remedies, secrecy and commercial organisation

Mattei's electrohomeopathic system was organised around medicated globules and liquid preparations known in English-language manuals as "electricities". Contemporary and near-contemporary sources associated with Mattei's authorised depots described the globules as small white pills or grains, but distinguished them from ordinary homeopathic sugar pills, stating that they were manufactured in that form and dissolved more slowly. The "electricities" were described as clear liquids, apparently resembling water.

The preparation of the remedies was deliberately secret. Gliddon's 1892 manual stated that their manufacture followed the medieval doctrine of the spagyrics and that the way of combining different series of plants into individual remedies was Mattei's own discovery and "remains his secret". Treccani likewise describes Mattei's preparations as compound remedies, unlike the simple remedies used by homeopaths, and notes that both their composition and method of preparation were kept secret.

The practical theory of the remedies was based mainly on the distinction between blood and lymph. Gliddon stated that electrohomeopathic treatment took as its basis the patient's constitution, regarded as either lymphatic or angioitic, and that diseases were interpreted as resulting from a vitiated condition of the lymph, the blood, or both. Modern summaries describe eight principal groups of globule remedies: anti-scrofulous, anti-cancerous, anti-angioitic, febrifuge, pectoral, anti-lymphatic, vermifuge and anti-venereal. The liquid "electricities" were classified by colour and polarity as red, blue, white, yellow and green.

The remedies were used both internally and externally. Gliddon's manual described globules taken dry or dissolved in water, as well as baths, gargles, injections, compresses and salves made from the remedies. The "electricities" were chiefly applied externally to painful parts or nerve points, but could also be taken internally in drops on sugar or in water.

A surviving medicine chest in the Science Museum Group collection, produced in Bologna between 1871 and 1885, contains large labelled bottles and small phials. The museum notes that the large bottles were labelled only by colour, such as red, green, white, yellow and blue, so that the actual ingredients remained undisclosed, and that ointments were prepared from ingredients taken from both the large bottles and the small phials.

The secrecy of the formulas was closely tied to the commercial organisation of the system. Gliddon's manual warned that no remedies, books or pamphlets were authorised by Mattei unless they bore the castle trade mark with the words "Rimedi elettromiopatici del Conte Cesare Mattei, Bologna, Marca di fabbrica". British journalist W. T. Stead reported in 1891 that the practical distribution of the remedies was managed from Bologna by Mario Venturoli Mattei and that, according to Venturoli, about a million phials of granules and a similar number of bottles of "electricities" and boxes of ointment were being sent out each year.

Distribution

Mattei's system had considerable popular success in Italy and abroad, especially in France and Germany. Because he was not a qualified physician, he generally practised in the presence of a doctor to avoid prosecution for illegal practice.

In 1869, through his connections with papal circles, Mattei obtained authorisation from Pius IX to test his remedies for three months in the Roman military convalescent hospital of Santa Teresa, whose medical director, L. Pascucci, supported him. In 1881, after years of promotion and controversy, Mattei began mass production of his remedies and organised their export through a network of authorised depots. The network grew from 26 initial depots, the first in Bologna, to 107 by 1884, with locations in Europe, the United States, Haiti and China.

The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei gives a broader list of early depots, including major Italian cities as well as Paris, Nice, Regensburg, Geneva, London, Warsaw, Kraków, Moscow, Odessa, several Spanish towns, Delft, Mangalore, Yokohama and Buenos Aires. It states that under Venturoli the number of depots reached 266 in 1914.

The same source notes that the success of the system was accompanied by the circulation of non-original remedies, including preparations sold by former collaborators and by others who imitated the contents or trade mark of Mattei's products.

In 1887 Mattei was tried before the magistrate's court of Vergato after putting his products on sale in pharmacies.

Reception and criticism

Electrohomeopathy attracted both supporters and fierce critics. Treccani states that criticism came from the medical world and also from homeopaths, with one recurring objection concerning the alleged electrical properties of the remedies, which could not be demonstrated.

The secrecy of the formulas was one of the main points of criticism. Mattei's preparations were attacked not only by representatives of orthodox medicine but also by homeopaths, who objected that his compound and undisclosed remedies were incompatible with Hahnemannian homeopathic practice. E. W. Berridge's article "Matteism: The Latest Craze" appeared in The Homoeopathic Physician in 1888, while G. W. Potter's "Matteism: An Exposure" was published in the British Medical Journal in 1892 after the work of a British Mattei Investigation Committee.

Later homeopathic criticism also attacked the identity of the system itself. An 1899 article in The Homoeopathic Recorder, titled "The Mattei Humbuggery", described electrohomeopathy as a revived and commercially advertised offshoot rather than orthodox homeopathy, and criticised the secret and compound character of the remedies.

In the English-speaking world Mattei's remedies became associated with what later historical literature called the "Mattei cancer cure". Joseph O. Baylen examined the phenomenon in his 1969 article "The Mattei Cancer Cure: A Victorian Nostrum", published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. The Science Museum Group describes Mattei's system as popular despite being dismissed by the medical profession as quackery. It also notes that the treatment was used at St Saviour's Cancer Hospital in London from 1873, but that by the 1930s Mattei's ideas were generally dismissed.

One of the best documented foreign visitors was Lady Isabel Burton, wife and biographer of Sir Richard Francis Burton. In May 1883, according to her own account, Richard Burton sent her from Trieste to Bologna to be treated by the "famous Count Mattei"; after learning that he was at Riola, she travelled there and stayed at the Hotel della Rosa, which she described as holding about twenty patients. She then visited Mattei at the Rocchetta and left a detailed description of his appearance, manner of consultation, castle and patient infrastructure.

British public interest was also stimulated by the journalist W. T. Stead, who published the article "Can Cancer be Cured? A Visit to Count Mattei: His Challenge to the Faculty" in the January 1891 issue of The Review of Reviews. The attention given to Mattei's claims in Britain was followed by medical criticism and investigation, including G. W. Potter's 1892 article "Matteism: An Exposure" in the British Medical Journal. Potter reported on a British medical committee that had examined claims made for Mattei's cancer treatment and judged the results negatively.

Later years and death

In the final months of his life Mattei remained concerned with both the completion of the Rocchetta and the documentary commemoration of his electrohomeopathic enterprise. A letter of 15 March 1896, published by Renzo Zagnoni and Alex Vannini in the local historical journal Nuèter, shows that he still wished his tomb, the church and the so-called "rooms of the plebiscite" (stanze del Plebiscito) to be completed. These rooms were intended to display letters, seals, stamps and testimonials from civil and religious authorities, notable figures and sovereigns who had expressed support for or interest in electrohomeopathy. Zagnoni and Vannini interpret the project as a planned memorial, within the castle, to the written memory of Mattei's medical enterprise.

The same documents refer to a Protocollo d'oro ("Golden Protocol"), described by Mattei in a letter to Cesare Fava as a dossier intended to complete a European plebiscite in favour of electrohomeopathy and to be displayed on the walls of a "new room" (stanza Nova). Zagnoni and Vannini identify it as a precious file of documents signed by people who supported Mattei's electrohomeopathy or reported favourable results from it. They also note that, although the dossier appears to have existed, it has not been found.

Cesare Fava was one of the figures involved in Mattei's final arrangements after the exclusion of Mario Venturoli from the castle. According to Zagnoni and Vannini, the lawyer Turriccia took over the administrative direction, while Fava was entrusted with the production of the remedies and received the keys to the cabinet where instructions for their preparation and other important documents were kept. In a letter of 11 December 1895 Fava reported that, after receiving the key to the "cabinet of essences" (armadio delle essenze), he had found papers placed in disorder, including a packet addressed to Venturoli containing letters from the pope, the king and the queen, together with other documents and objects. The episode has been interpreted as evidence of the fragmentary preservation of Mattei's papers in the period immediately before his death.

Mattei died at Rocchetta Mattei on 3 April 1896. Local archival accounts record that his funeral drew large crowds from the surrounding area. The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei, citing notes by Zeffirino Taruffi, reports that about 2,000 people followed the coffin to the church of Savignano, while a later religious office on 14 April 1896 involved 60 priests and attracted about 6,000 people.

In his will of 22 December 1895, Mattei provided that his estate should be used to establish a charitable legal entity whose purposes included the conservation of Rocchetta Mattei and charitable activity, with administration entrusted to the Ospizio dei vecchi settuagenari. Fava's role in the documents of 1895-1896 therefore reflects the temporary reorganisation of Mattei's affairs after Venturoli's exclusion, rather than a definitive succession arrangement. After Mattei's death, Venturoli challenged the testamentary settlement and, following legal disputes concluded in 1904, obtained a substantial part of the estate and resumed his role at the Rocchetta. Authorisation to accept the inheritance was granted by royal decree on 20 October 1905, and in 1906, in accordance with Mattei's testamentary wishes, his remains were moved to the Rocchetta and placed in the chapel.

Legacy

After Mattei's death, Mario Venturoli-Mattei continued work at the Rocchetta and carried on the electrohomeopathic activity. According to the Gruppo Studi Cesare Mattei, Venturoli took possession of the Rocchetta from 1904 and founded the "Ditta Conte Cesare Mattei" in Bologna for the production of the remedies.

The electrohomeopathic enterprise survived Mattei and Venturoli for several decades. According to the Gruppo Studi Cesare Mattei, the business passed to Venturoli's wife Giannina Longhi in 1927 and then to his adopted daughter Iris Boriani in 1956, before closing in 1969. The same source states that the right to produce the remedies and the related production method later passed to Gianna Fadda and then to Alessia Marchetti. The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei gives 1968 as the year in which the Bologna laboratories closed and states that the original Mattei remedies are no longer produced.

Archival records relating to Mattei's estate were later incorporated into the papers of the Ospizio dei vecchi settuagenari after the inheritance was accepted by royal decree in 1905. The series, now held by the State Archive of Bologna, contains correspondence, inheritance documentation, accounting papers and miscellaneous material relating to Mattei's life and activities. Città degli Archivi records that much of Mattei's personal archive, more than fifty boxes once kept partly at the Rocchetta and partly in Bologna, was dispersed on the antiquarian market after the Second World War.

During the Second World War the Rocchetta was stripped of furniture and fittings by occupying troops. In 1959 the Municipality of Bologna, engaged in postwar reconstruction, declined an offer of the castle; it was then purchased by Primo Stefanelli, known as Il Mercantone, who attempted to run it as a tourist attraction. In 2005 the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna acquired the building and began the recovery that led to its reopening to the public.

The later memory of Mattei is preserved through several local institutions and collections. The Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei A.P.S. describes itself as a historical and cultural committee founded in 1997; it states that from 2000 it began a recovery effort aimed at collecting material relating to Mattei, the Rocchetta and electrohomeopathy, and that its archive-museum now includes thousands of artefacts. The association has also published or reprinted works connected with Mattei and his legacy, including reprints of Emancipazione dell'uomo dal medico and the Vero Vade-Mecum dell'Elettromeopatia, as well as a printed edition of Istoria di un assassino, described by the association as a previously unpublished manuscript written by Mattei and preserved in its collection. The Museo Cesare Mattei, founded by the Gruppo Studi Cesare Mattei in 2019, includes material relating to electrohomeopathy, Mattei, Mario Venturoli-Mattei and Rocchetta Mattei, including remedies, manuscripts, publications, laboratory components, photographs, furniture and personal objects.

Cultural references

Mattei's international notoriety is reflected in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. In the chapter "The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare", the devil appearing to Ivan Karamazov says that he wrote to "Count Mattei in Milan", who sent him "a book and some drops".

In 2019 Mattei was the subject of Il conte magico, a documentary film directed by Marco Melluso and Diego Schiavo and produced by Genoma Films. The film, supported by the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission, recounts the life of Cesare Mattei and the history of Rocchetta Mattei through a mixture of documentary and fictional elements.

Works

Mattei published several works explaining and promoting his system, many of which were translated into European languages.

• Un poco di storia sui rimedj Mattei, Bologna, 1874; 2nd ed., 1881.
• Emancipazione dell'uomo dal medico pei rimedi Mattei, Bologna, 1875.
• Elettromiopatia: scienza nuova che cura il sangue e sana l'organismo, Casale Monferrato, 1878; 2nd ed., Bologna, 1881.
• La scienza nuova del conte C. M. e la scienza vecchia del dott. C, Casale Monferrato, 1878.
• Vade-mecum della elettromeopatia, Nice, 1879.
• Elettro-omeopatia: nuovo vade-mecum, Bologna, 1883; later editions through 1937.
• Scienza nuova: storia dell'elettromiopatia, Bologna, 1892.

Further reading

• Venturoli-Mattei, Mario (1892). Il conte Cesare Mattei nella vita politica: documenti inediti pubblicati ed illustrati (in Italian). Bologna: Società tipografica già compositori.
• Gliddon, A. J. L. (1892). Stepping Stones to Electro-homoeopathy: Count Mattei's System of Medicine (2nd ed.). London: Central Mattei Depot.
• Mattei, Cesare (1891). Electro-homoeopathic Medicine: A New Medical System, Being a Popular and Domestic Guide Founded on Experience. Translated by Theobald, Robert Masters. London: D. Stott.
• Bonaiuti, Agrippina (1900). Elettromiopatia del conte Cesare Mattei: a chi resta il segreto? (in Italian). Bologna.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Palmieri, Arturo (1931). In Rocchetta con Cesare Mattei: ricordi di vita paesana (in Italian). Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori.
• La biblioteca del conte Cesare Mattei. Nuèter ricerche (in Italian). 1996.
• Facci, Mario (2002). Il conte Cesare Mattei: vita e opere di un singolare guaritore dell'Ottocento, inventore dell'elettromeopatia, costruttore della Rocchetta di Riola (in Italian). Porretta Terme.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Guidanti, A.; Zagnoni, R., eds. (1997). Il signore della Rocchetta: il conte Cesare Mattei nel centenario della morte (1809-1896): atti della giornata di studio, Riola 1996 (in Italian). Porretta Terme.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Peloso, Paolo (1991). "Medicina popolare e psicoterapia nel sistema elettro-omeopatico di Cesare Mattei". Psichiatria, magia, medicina popolare (in Italian): 293–305.
• Falqui, Laura (2008). "Una fiamma nel paesaggio. Il sogno di Cesare Mattei". Il Carrobbio (in Italian). 34: 221–250.
• Homes, Bill (2011). La Rocchetta Mattei di Riola. Guida alla architettura e alla decorazione (in Italian). Porretta Terme: Gruppo di studi Alta Valle del Reno.
• Facci, Mario; Gresleri, Giuliano; Perazzini, Pier Luigi; Zagnoni, Renzo (2009). "Cesare Mattei e la Rocchetta: nuove ricerche nel bicentenario della nascita (1809-2009)". Nuèter (in Italian). 35 (70): 337–400.
• Valenzano, Andrea (2025). "W. T. Stead incontra Cesare Mattei". Nuèter-Ricerche (in Italian) (89).
• Gresleri, Giuliano (2001). "Cesare Mattei e la rocchetta. Maestri veri e maestri presunti". In Guccini, Anna Maria (ed.). Attraverso gli archivi di architettura. La trasmissione del sapere. Maestri e allievi lungo la via Emilia (in Italian). Provincia di Bologna; Comune di Fontanelice; Archivio Museo Giuseppe Mengoni. pp. 39–58.
• Cova, Paolo (2020). Il Camino dei Fenicotteri. I disegni dei Casanova dall'Æmilia Ars alla Rocchetta Mattei (in Italian). Porretta Terme: Nuèter. ISBN 9791280073006.

External links

• Media related to Cesare Mattei at Wikimedia Commons
• Rocchetta Mattei - official history
• Archivio Museo Cesare Mattei
• Opera pia conte Cesare Mattei at Città degli Archivi
• Cesare Mattei in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani