OPERA THEATER

TEATRO DELL'OPERA
Piazza Beniamino Gigli 7

1878/80 Achille Sfondrini for Domenico Costanzi who was owner of the land was the impresario until his death

Restored radically in the years 1926/28 by Marcello Piacentini (1881/1960)

Further restoration in the years 1957/60 with FAÇADE also by Marcello Piacentini
Bronze relief on the façade “Five Muse” by Luigi Scirocchi

Among the world premiere of operas held in this theater: Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

FRESCO IN THE DOME by Annibale Brugnoli (1843/1915)

The LAMP is considered the largest in the world with a diameter of 6 m (20 feet), height of 3.5 m (11.5 feet), volume of 36 cubic meters and weighing more than 3,000 pounds (473 stones)
It was made in Murano and it is a masterpiece of glass art
It is thoroughly cleaned every five years

SYNAGOGUE

SINAGOGA
Lungotevere de’ Cenci

1901/04 Osvaldo Armanni (1855/1929) and Vincenzo Costa (active 1899/1904) in a style described as Assyrian-Babylonian

Services are celebrated with the Roman Rite and, in a room in the basement, with the Iberian rite

Interior decoration in purist style by Annibale Brugnoli (1843/1915) and Domenico Bruschi (1840/1910)

“The architects, in the absence of a established type of building for Jewish places of worship, borrowed the articulation of the architecture of the centrally planned churches, while referring to the Assyrian-Babylonian figurative tradition for the decoration (...). The elements of ancient Mesopotamia are reviewed in the light of a renewed sensitivity in ‘liberty’ style” (Giorgio Muratore)

JEWISH MUSEUM
Permanent exhibition of objects continuously used by the Roman Jewish community
Six rooms divided into three sections: historical, ceremonial objects and fabrics
Among the objects visible here there are about 400 silver pieces, 900 pieces of fabric, 100 marble pieces, as well as casts, documents and scrolls

Jewish people were living in Rome since at least the second century BC
Paul IV (1555/59) established the ROME GHETTO called “Serraglio degli Ebrei” (Menagerie of Jews) in 1555 with the bull Cum Nimis absurdum and revoked all the rights granted to the Jewish of Rome
This area was chosen because the Jewish community, who lived in antiquity in the area of the Aventine Hill, and especially in the Trastevere neighborhood, lived here at the time and it was the majority of the population of the area itself
It was built 40 years after the Venice Ghetto, which was the world's first

In the ghetto there were five synagogues or “scole”, according to the place of origin and the rite of visitors:

The Scola Tempio (Temple School) for local Jews

The Scola Nuova (New School) for those who came from small towns in Lazio

The Scola Siciliana (Sicilian School) for the Jewish refugees from southern Italy

The Scola Catalana (Catalan School) and the Scola Castigliana (Castilian School) for the Spanish

In 1848, finally, Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78) tore down the wall, but the Jews, however, remained segregated until 1870 when they were declared equal to other citizens by King Victor Emmanuel II
The first cannon shot during the assault on the breach of Porta Pia was shot by a Jewish officer from Turin

The Roman Jewish are about 16,000, nearly half of the population of Jewish in all of Italy consisting of about 36,000 people
When the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948 some Roman Jewish symbolically passed under the Arch of Titus, the destroyer of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD, something Jewish people had not done for many centuries

SALVIATI PALACE

PALAZZO SALVIATI

Via della Lungara 82-83

1520/27 Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) for Filippo Adimari chamberlain of Pope Leo X Medici (1513/21)

Completed 1552/68 by Giovanni Lippi aka Nanni di Baccio Bigio (about 1513/68) for Cardinal Bernardo Salviati

From 1883 to 1943 it was the headquarters of the Military School of Rome

It was restored and enlarged in 1933

It originally faced the Leonino Port disappeared after the construction of the embankments of the Tiber

On October 16, 1943 1,022 Roman Jews were brought here, and two days later deported to Auschwitz. Only sixteen survived

In 1945 it was for a full year Hospital of the Canadian Armed Forces

Between 1946 and 1950 it was the Military Tribunal

Since 1971 is home to the Centro Alti Studi per la Difesa (Centre for High Defense Studies)

LIBRARY

Three rooms with ceilings decorated in 1883 with “Scenes of battles of the Risorgimento and other military episodes” and “Groups of plants and flowers” by Annibale Brugnoli (1843/1915)

CHAPEL

Paintings by Santi di Tito (1536/1603)

RINASCENTE PALACE ON LARGO CHIGI

PALAZZO DELLA RINASCENTE DI LARGO CHIGI

Largo Chigi

1885/87 Giulio De Angelis (1850/1906) and Sante Bucciarelli (1848/94)

1917 raised with an extra floor again by Giulio De Angelis

1920 cantilever roof by Pio Piacentini (1846/1928)

The INTERIORS were painted by Annibale Brugnoli (1843/1915) with paintings of which unfortunately no trace remains

It was the first department store in Rome, formerly known as STABILIMENTO BOCCONI (Bocconi Establishment) or ALLE CITTÀ D’ITALIA (To the Cities of Italy)

The first elevators and escalators ever in Rome were installed here

It was called LA RINASCENTE (The Reborning One) by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio in 1917 for its reconstruction following a fire. Similar fate had just happened shortly before to its counterpart in Milan

“He showed independent and unconventional temperament and mastery of the most advanced construction techniques, linked to the industrial production of his time. With the Bocconi building Giulio De Angelis experimented in the typology of the department store, a risk in many ways, including that of opposing rooted habits and social behaviors, and he won this very difficult comparison test, giving Rome the first building of great size fully intended for commercial use” (Giuseppe Miano - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

In 2006 the building was bought for about € 125 million by the Spanish group ZARA and La Rinascente in 2010 moved across the street, in the Palazzo dell'Istituto di Beni Stabili (Galleria Alberto Sordi)

The preparation of the new store lasted about one year and the architecture has been restored to the initial design of Giulio De Angelis, a project advanced for its time in the use of steel structures in construction and with huge and bright windows

QUIRINAL PALACE (seventh part)

Room of the Bees

Vault of the 1900s with central panel of the 1600s

Stucco frieze “Lorenzo de' Medici banishing vices” about 1800 by Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur (1767/1831)

“Bust of Commodus (180/192)” end of the second century AD

Room of the Zodiac

Vault and lunettes “Zodiac signs” of the end of 1800s by Annibale Brugnoli (1843/1915)

Frieze in bas-relief “Triumph of Caesar” 1812 by Carlo Finelli (1785/1853)

Room of the Piedmont Wallpaper or of the factories of Paul V

It takes its name from the 1750 silk wallpaper of the Ursuline Sisters of Turin, now removed

In 2006 the frieze with “Papal building works alternating with virtues” of 1610 by Ranuccio Semprevivo and Cesare Rossetti (active 1593/1620) was rediscovered

Painting “Galatea” maybe by Giovanni Andrea Sirani

Chapel of the Annunciation

1609 Flaminio Ponzio (1560/1613) for Paul V Borghese (1605/21)

Altar “Annunciation” by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

Frescoes of the years 1609/10 by Guido Reni, including the famous “Madonna of sewing”

Lunettes “Annunciation to Joachim” by Antonio Carracci (about 1589/1618), son of Annibale, and “Presentation in the Temple” by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)

Left wall “Seven putti” by Francesco Albani (1578/1660)

Room of Tapestries

Room Setup by Ignazio Perricci

Vault “Love crowns the three graces” 1877 by Cesare Maccari (1840/1919)

Four “Eighteenth-century tapestries” of the manufactory of Beauvais from a model of François Boucher (1703/70)

In the splays of the windows “Grotesque” beginning of the seventeenth century by Annibale Duranti with coat of arms of Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800/23) added later

Two splendid “Egyptian alabaster urns with lids” first century AD

Room of Mirrors

Vault “Allegory of the dance” 1876 by Ignazio Perricci

Dancing Room

Very high vault, so-called “Roof terrace of Ponzio”

It was painted by Agostino Tassi (1578/1644) and Orazio Lomi aka Orazio Gentileschi (1563/1639) and was fully repainted with the “Triumph of Italy” in 1873 by Girolamo Magnani and Cecrope Barilli (1839/1911)

The carpet is 340 m² (3,700 square feet) woven, just like those of the other rooms, in situ by a company from Turin

Gallery of Busts

Vault “Triumph of candor” 1905 by Alessandro Palombi (active since the end of the XIX/beginning of the XX century)

Five busts with ancient heads