GALLERIA COLONNA
The
collection was put together from 1650 by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna (his
grandfather was Marcantonio II Colonna the victor of Lepanto)
It was continued
from 1666 by his nephew Grand Constable Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna and by his son
Filippo II Colonna, who inaugurated the gallery in 1703
The
building of the gallery was begun in 1654 by Antonio
Del Grande (about 1625/79)
A document
written by Antonio Del Grande mentions a collaboration with Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) but the active
presence here of the great genius of Baroque art is not otherwise documented
Continued
in the years 1693/1703 by Girolamo Fontana (1668/1701)
“It is the
most spectacular work designed by Antonio Del Grande in the palace, which was
gradually assuming the form of a huge complex with several courtyards, for
which only in the eighteenth century, with the intervention first of Nicola
Michetti, and then of Paolo Posi, there will be attempts to impose uniformity.
The gallery (...) will be finished by Girolamo Fontana, but the wide body,
divided into three spaces by two pairs of free Corinthian columns, demonstrates
the ability of Del Grande to interpret courtly themes avoiding any rhetorical
excess” (Manfredo Tafuri - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
The 210
paintings dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century and the about
150 sculptures mostly ancient are shown to the public for one morning a
week since the seventeenth century
STAIRS
“Isabella Colonna Salviati” by Pompeo
Batoni (1708/87)
Antechamber
“St. Julian
Hospitaller” maybe by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del
Vaga (1501/47)
“Vision of
St. Jerome” by Pier Francesco Mola (1612/66)
“He
stands out thanks to a sensibility, become rare, for noble tranquility and
grandeur. In contrast to the broken lines of the Zuccaris' school, he loves
long lines that runs uninterrupted, with a distinctly melancholy ductus. In
line with this approach, in him the modeling of bodies and of drapery does not
show, as in his predecessors, the absolute tension toward a strong plastic
fullness, but instead something consciously superficial. (...) Even in
chiaroscuro, however treated with great care, he does not seek, as it happened
for example in the school of Barocci, a surprising effect in patches, but he
puts larger areas of well shaded tones alongside each other. Thanks to these
qualities, Cavalier d'Arpino's works have an aristocratic touch” (Hermann Voss)
