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Palazzo De Beaumont Bonelli is located on the ancient street of the city walls, along the coast that drops dramatically to the Mar Grande. Once the property of the noble Beumont family, granted nobility by Ferdinando IV in 1759, this building features a series of rooms around a small inner courtyard and a suprising four-level underground section.
The rooms on the second floor, which have now been restored by the current owners, the Bellecicco family, still have their original 18th-century decorations on the ceilings and floors.
The underground portion of the palace, known as the Ipogeo Bellacicco from the name of its owners, is on four different levels that descend to the sea at a depth of 12 metres below street level. This site was settled in various phases over the years: all are documented on different levels by the presence of differing architectural structures that correspond to different geological and historical phases, from prehistoric times to modern days (18th century). Of particular interest is the water supply system at the fourth level, consisting of cisterns and pipelines excavated in the bank of calcarenitic rock and used to collect fresh water from a karstic river. Furthermore, the hypogeum contains late-medieval wall structures and architectural elements from the Byzantine era, that were most like reused. The hypogeum today houses art and serves as a venue for cultural events, in addition to being the headquarters of the no-profit association Filonide Taranto.