The Massari park was the garden of the adjacent 16th-century Massari Palace. It was designed in 1780 by Luigi Bertelli for the Marquis Camillo Bevilacqua. In origin had seven access gates but only two remain: the main on Course Porta Mare and a second on course Hercules I Este. He was famous for the wide variety of plants and shrubs present as well as for the number of statues that adorned him. Until the 1970s, near Corso Porta Mare, there was a labyrinth of hedges, similar to that of some Venetian villas. This maze has been eliminated due to safety concerns. The park, around the middle of the 20th century, was a source of inspiration for the Ferrara writer Giorgio Bassani to describe the garden of the Finzi-Contini that names his best-known novel. The place described does not actually exist, but the park is as close as the invention of the writer. A few years later, in the film adaptation of the text, some scenes of The Garden of Finzi Contini filmed by Vittorio De Sica resumed the entrance of the park on course Hercules Este.
