PALACE OF MINERVA

PALAZZO DELLA MINERVA

Piazza della Minerva 42

1280/1330 as a convent for the Dominican friars

Rebuilt in 1559 Guidetto Guidetti (about 1498/1564) for Vincenzo Giustiniani general of the Dominicans

Expanded in 1656 by Paolo Marucelli (1594/1649)

It was a seat of the Congregazione del S. Uffizio (Congregation of the Sacred Office), which met here every week and celebrated trials including the one of Galileo Galilei in 1633

In the GALILEAN ROOM the sentence was read and it was here that he abjured his heliocentric ideas immediately after to avoid the death sentence. The famous phrase yet it moves seems not to have any historical foundation

Restructured in 1860 by Andrea Busiri Vici (1818/1911) for Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78) who transformed it into the Pontifical College of South America

After 1870, with the adjoining BIBLIOTECA CASANATENSE (Casanatense Library) it was property of the Italian State and it became the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, of Scientific Research and Technology and of the Post Office

Today it houses offices of Members of Parliament

MINERVA'S OBELISK

OBELISCO DELLA MINERVA

Piazza della Minerva

About 500 BC, built for Apries, Pharaoh mentioned in the Bible as Ofra (Jer. 44.30)

5.47 m (17.9 feet) High, 12.96 m (42.5 feet) with the base

It was found in 1665 in the area of the Iseum Campensis (Temple of Isis) to the decoration of which it probably belonged

Elephant sculpted in 1667 by Ercole Ferrata (1610/86) on a design and idea by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) inspired by Alexander VII Chigi (1755/67)

It is commonly called “Pulcin della Minerva” (chick of Minerva) for a refined corruption of the original nickname: in the eighteenth century it was called “Porcin della Minerva” (pig of Minerva) for its vague resemblance to a hog and for the Romans' unfamiliarity with elephants at the time

HOTEL MINERVA

HOTEL MINERVA

Piazza della Minerva 38

Original structure built in the seventeenth century for the Fonseca family of Portuguese origin. With their extinction at the beginning of 1800s it passed to the Conti family that decided to use it as a hotel and inaugurated it in 1832

Raised in late 1800s and renovated in 1924 with a CANTILEVER ROOF by Pier Luigi Nervi (1891/1979)

It was closed in 1978

It was restored in the years 1986/90 by Paolo Portoghesi (1931) and reopened in 1990 under the name Grand Hotel de la Minerve