St. ELIGIUS OF THE JEWELLERS

S. ELIGIO DEGLI OREFICI

Via di S. Eligio 8a

1514/1551 designed by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) from a project of the years 1514/15

The attribution is based on a drawing by Giovanni Sallustio Peruzzi (?/1573) son of Baldassarre Peruzzi. The drawing is in the Uffizi Museum in Florence and there is a note in which the church is explicitly attributed to Raphael

It was built on the former church of S. Eusterio, demolished in 1514

St. Eligius (about 588/660) was a French saint, patron of goldsmiths

According to tradition, the Frankish king Clotaire II would have commissioned a golden throne and Eligius would have made two with the amount of gold that he had been given just to make one

The king was very impressed by his ability and his honesty and appointed him goldsmith of the court and master of the mint

In addition to being the patron saint of goldsmiths, he is also the patron saint of farriers and veterinarians because he would miraculously hung a leg off a horse

RESTORATIONS

In 1590 by Francesco Capriani aka Francesco da Volterra (1535/94) and in the years 1602/04 by Flaminio Ponzio (1560/1613) who consolidated the church and in the years 1710/11, 1857/65, 1911 under the direction of Antonio Muñoz (1884/1960), 1952/55 and 1977/78

“Despite the various restorations over time, the interior maintains a fine of solemnity, as determined by light and geometric harmony among the various parts of the building that is inspired, regardless of the exact identification of the specific contributions to the project - Raphael and Peruzzi -, to the culture of Bramante. Significant in this respect the choice of the Greek cross plan that certainly can be seen as a reflection on a reduced scale of the formal, functional and symbolic implications of the designs of Bramante for St. Peter” (Sofia Barchiesi)

FLOOR

1857 using marble slabs from the destroyed Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

FAÇADE

Collapsed in 1601

It was rebuilt in 1602/04 by Flaminio Ponzio

Completed in 1620, possibly by Giovanni Bonazzini

DOME

Maybe by Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481/1536) who completed Raphael's project

Restored and redesigned in 1590 by Francesco Capriani aka Francesco da Volterra (1535/94)

In the years 1710/11 the lead lining of the exterior of the dome began, only to be completed in 1739

RIGHT ALTAR

“Adoration of the Magi” 1639 by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610/62) from Viterbo, a pupil of Pietro da Cortona, who also painted the “Sibille” on the sides at the top

Originally there was a fresco by Federico Zuccari with the same subject destroyed by the collapse of 1601

APSE

Frescoes “Eternal God supporting the crucifix between angels” at the top and “Madonna and Child with Sts. Eligius, Stephen, Mary Magdalene and Lawrence on the right and John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria on the left” at the bottom 1581/84 maybe by Matteo da Lecce (about 1546/1616) and Taddeo Zuccari (1529/66)

“Matteo da Lecce in his frescoes was able to bring to such intensity the three-dimensional illusion that his figures - in the words of Baglione - seemed to come off the walls. In this, which is his Roman masterpiece, the composition betrays the influence of the school of Raphael, and in the design of the bodies, of the school of Michelangelo, especially through Sebastiano del Piombo and Salviati” (Hermann Voss)

On the sides “Two prophets” maybe by Taddeo Zuccari

Above the altar fragment of the head of St. Eligius kept in a silver reliquary of 1628

ARCH ABOVE THE ALTAR

Fresco “St. Eligius as he is assisting the poor” by an unknown seventeenth-century artist

On the sides “Annunciation” maybe by Matteo da Lecce

LEFT ALTAR

“Adoration of the Shepherds” in 1574 by Giovanni De Vecchi (about 1537/1615)

On the sides at the top “Sibille” by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli

LEFT AND RIGHT OF THE CHURCH

Houses belonging to the Brotherhood of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths

The one on the right was designed in 1625 by Paolo Marucelli (1594/1649)

VIDONI PALACE

PALAZZO VIDONI

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 116

Built in1515 as Palazzo Caffarelli for Bernardino Caffarelli

Giorgio Vasari attributed to Lorenzo Lotti aka Lorenzetto (1490/1541) who is said to have followed the advice of Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520)

Expanded in 1550 and in 1770 by Nicola Giansimoni (active from 1766/d. 1800) for the Stoppani family

At the end of the eighteenth century it was bought by Cardinal Pietro Vidoni. Later it belonged to the Giustiniani Bandini family

The original FAÇADE is on Via del Sudario

It was raised with an EXTRA FLOOR and given a NEW FAÇADE ON CORSO VITTORIO EMANUELE II in the years 1886/87 by Francesco Settimj (active 1876/88), who opened a new main entrance in what was once the back of the building

Here took place the historic meeting between Pope Paul III (1534/49) and the German Emperor Charles V key to future relations between empire and papacy

It was the German Embassy and the administrative headquarters of the National Fascist Party. At that time it was renamed PALAZZO DEL LITTORIO

At the end of the Second World War it was the headquarters of the French Army

Now it houses the Ministry for Reforms and Innovation in Public Administration

In the foundations of the palace the “talking” statue Abate Luigi was found. It originally decorated the Curia of Pompey over which the palace was built

ROOM CHARLES V

In the frieze paintings “Stories of Charles V” by the school of Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47)

ROOM OF MIRRORS

Also called the Lady's Cabinet, the lady being the Duchess Giustiniani Bandini. A delightful delirium of Rococo style

Ceiling “Cupid with Doves” by Prospero Piatti (1842/1902)

ROOM OF AUDIENCES

Ceiling “Allegory of painting, sculpture and architecture” maybe by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728/79), more likely by Tommaso Maria Conca (1734/1822) who was a pupil of his uncle, the great Sebastiano Conca

CARPEGNA PALACE - GALLERY OF THE ACADEMY OF St. LUKE (third part)

SOME OF THE MASTERPIECES EXHIBITED OR KEPT IN STORAGE

Paintings

Fresco representing a “Putto” maybe by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) to whom it is also traditionally assigned the painting “St. Luke painting the Virgin Mary”

“Annunciation to the Shepherds” by Jacopo Da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano (about 1510/92)

“Polish Prince” and “Virgin Mary and Child with Angels Musician” by Antoon Van Dyck (1599/1641)

“Nymphs crown Abundance” by Peter Paul Rubens (1577/1640)

“Judith and Holofernes” by G.B. Piazzetta (1683/1754)

“The artistic expression of Piazzetta was the result of extraordinary intensity of feeling, not diluted, but deliberately concentrated in dense and short summaries of painting. In fact Piazzetta, although Venetian by birth, education and art, seems to have wanted to pursue a tantalizingly mirage of plastic perfection: so that his work ranged, because of its inherent extreme difficulty, between the highest pinnacles of art and the disappointment of not reaching the desired results. Technically, the painter is distinguished by the Venetians of his time for a strong unusual draughtsmanship, although his is a pictorial design, without anything of linear in itself. It would be enough as evidence to remind how he was the greatest drawer of the eighteenth century” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Self-Portrait” by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

“Portrait of Pietro Bernini” maybe by his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

“Love joking”, “Bacchus and Ariadne” and “Sorrowful Madonna” by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

“Portrait of Pope Clement XI Albani (1700/21)”, “Glory of Angels”, “Madonna and Child” and “The Birth of John the Baptist” by G.B. Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709)

Eight paintings including “Landscapes” by Salvator Rosa (1615/73)

Oil on copper “Virgin and St. Francis” copy from the church S. Maria della Vittoria by Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641)

“Portrait of Ippolito Riminaldi”, “Portrait of Marino Corner” and “St. Jerome” Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) (about 1490/1576)

“The singer” and “Tarquin killing Lucretia” by Guido Cagnacci (1601/63)

Three paintings with “Roman Ruins” including “The Archaeologist” 1749 by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691/1765)

“Self Portrait” by Lavinia Fontana (1552/1614)

“Madonna and Child” by G.B. Salvi aka Sassoferrato (1609/85)

“Venus and Cupid” by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

“St. Bartholomew”, “St. Andrew” and “Portrait of a Woman” by Alessandro Allori aka Bronzino (1533/1607) a student of Agnolo di Cosimo aka Bronzino

“Rest on the Flight into Egypt” by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)

“Jael killing Sisera”, “Virgin in prayer” and twelve portraits by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

“The Plague” by Mattia Preti (1613/99)

“Bacchanal” and “Immaculate Conception” by Corrado Giaquinto (1703/66)

Five paintings including “Cupid and Psyche” and “St. Benedict in the bush” 1694/95 by Benedetto Luti (1666/1724)

Four paintings by Francesco Trevisani (1656/1746)

“Faustulus entrusts Romulus and Remus to Larentia” about 1739 by Jean François de Troy (1679/1752)

“Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine” by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

“Portrait of the English painter John Parker”, “Christ with St. Margaret of Cortona” and “Self-Portrait” by Marco Benefial (1684/1764)

“The simplicity of the representation (of this self-portrait by Benefial), which focuses on the individual, as it appears, ignoring attributes and ornaments, seems to be an important element of identification, together with the fiery attitude, a little contemptuous and his character shown without fear and uncertainties. A probable date for the painting is the middle of the second decade of the eighteenth century, showing the sitter here when he was about forty years old. Regarding the revolutionary art of the Roman artist Evelina Borea spoke 'of a strong and passionate naturalism absolutely innovative in those years in Rome', ‘of singular naturalistic clarity' and 'of a clarification of the detail, never giving up to decorative frills' (in E. Borea, Benefial Marco, DBI, 8, Rome, 1966, pp. .467), elements that we can fully relate to the work here examined” (Antonello Cesareo - Website of the Academy of St. Luke www.accademiasanluca.it)

“Synagogue” by the English William Hogarth (1697/1764)

“Portrait of the father Gaspar van Wittel” by Luigi Vanvitelli (1700/73)

“Allegory of Gratitude” 1706 by Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674/1755)

“The painting became part of the academic collections as 'joining gift' by Pier Leone Ghezzi. Starting from the oldest statutes of the Society, in fact, it was prescribed that each new member at the time of appointment would donate an essay of his art as a gift to the academic collections. (...) The iconography of the 'Gratitude' is derived from the 'Iconology' by Cesare Ripa. (...) The inscription on the table and the presence of the evergreen juniper allude to the durability of memory. On the day of admission of Pier Leone Ghezzi to the Academy was present Giuseppe, his father who, as the sources mention, played an important role in the education of his son” (Paola Picardi)

“Death of the Virgin Mary” by Francesco Coghetti (1801/75)

“Cathedral of Orvieto” by Annibale Angelini (1812/84)

“Funeral of Julius Caesar” and “Self-Portrait” by Pietro Gagliardi (1809/90)

“Portrait of Marianna Waldestein of Santa Cruz” by Andrea Appiani (1754/1817)

“Ulysses at the court of Alcinous” and “Triumphant Athlete” by Francesco Hayez (1791/1882)

“Self Portrait” by the Dutchman naturalized Briton Laurens Alma-Tadema (1836/1912)

“He first painted subject of medieval German history, but after a trip to Italy in 1863, he turned instead to subjects of ancient history. In 1870 he settled in London and specialized in scenes of Rome, which received great success: effects of artificial figures seen against polished marbles, illusionistic skills playing textiles, meat, metals” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Naked Woman” 1900 by Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860/1932)

“Portrait of a Woman” by Scipione Vannutelli (1834/94)

Three watercolors by Enrico Coleman (1846/1911)

“Return from fishing” by Umberto Coromaldi (1870/1948)

“Farmer” and “Self-Portrait” 1958 by Giacomo Balla (1871/1958)

“The Philosopher” 1954 by Carlo Carrà (1881/1966)

“Portrait of a Woman” by Tranquillo Cremona (1837/78)

Sketch of “The Deposition” by Adolfo De Carolis (1874/1928)

“Female friends reading” and “Self-Portrait” by Ercole Drei (1886/1973)

THERE ARE ALSO PAINTINGS BY:

Giovanni Antonio Canal aka Canaletto (1697/1768), Jacopo Negretti aka Jacopo Palma il Giovane (1544/1628), Paris Bordon (1500/71), Ciro Ferri (1634/89), Orazio Borgianni (1578/1616), Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79), Nicolas Poussin (1594/1665), Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610/62), Luigi Garzi (1638/1721), Gaspard Dughet (1615/75), Rosalba Carriera (1675/1757), Giuseppe Chiari (1654/1727), Paul Brill (1554/1626), Lazzaro Baldi (about 1624/1703), Jacques Courtois aka Borgognone (1628/79) e Guillaume Courtois (1628/79) both known as Borgognone, Giacomo Zoboli (1681/1767), Giovanni Odazzi (1663/1731), Giacomo Triga (1674/1746), Gaetano Lapis (1706/76), Ludovico Gimignani (1643/97) e suo padre Giacinto Gimignani (1606/81), Pier Francesco Mola (1612/66), Giuseppe Ghezzi (1634/1721), Placido Costanzi (1702/59), Giuseppe Passeri (1654/1714), Nicolò Ricciolini (1687/1772), Laurent Pécheux (1729/1821), Domenico Corvi (1721/1803), Pierre Subleyras (1699/1749), Etienne Parrocel (1696/1774), Gaspare Landi (1756/1830), Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640), Jan Frans Van Bloemen aka Orizzonte (1662/1749), Gaspar van Wittel (1653/1736), Anton von Maron (1733/1808), Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762/1834), Vincenzo Camuccini (1771/1844), Francesco Podesti (1800/95), Alessandro Capalti (1807/78), Pio Joris (1843/1921), Francesco Grandi (1831/91), Silverio Capparoni (1831/1907), Tommaso Minardi (1787/1871), Ludovico Seitz (1844/1908), Ludovico Stern (1709/77), Giulio Bargellini (1896/1936), Cesare Mariani (1826/1901), Antonio Mancini (1852/1930), Fausto Pirandello (1899/1975) and other

Bronze Sculptures

“Portrait of Napoleon as First Consul” by Antonio Canova (1757/1822)

“Bust of a Woman” by Emilio Greco (1913/95)

“Self-Portrait” by Ettore Ximenes (1855/1926)

“Female Head (Portrait of Lalla)” by Ercole Drei (1886/1973)

“Portrait of Francesco Podesti” by Michele Tripisciano (1860/1913)

In addition bronzes by Venanzo Crocetti (1913/2003), Filippo Cifariello (1864/1936), Francesco Nagni (1897/1977) and others

Terra Cotta Pieces

Relief “Leo XI Medici (1605) received the abjuration of Henry IV” model for the monument in the Basilica of St. Pietro by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654)

“The Arts pay homage to Clement XI Albani (1700/21)” 1702 by Pierre Legros (1666/1719)

Group “Achilles and Penthesilea” 1773 by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820)

“Perseus freeing Andromeda” 1786 by the Frenchman Joseph Chinard (1756/1813)

THERE ARE ALSO TERRA COTTA WORKS BY:

Pietro Bracci (1700/73), Filippo Della Valle (1698/1768), Antonio Della Bitta (1807/about 1879), Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929), Carlo Fontana (1865/1956), G.B. Maini (1690/1752), Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644/1725) and Ercole Rosa (1846/93)

BRANCONIO DELL'AQUILA PALACE

PALAZZO BRANCONIO DELL'AQUILA

Piazza S. Pietro - demolished

1515/20 Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) for his friend G.B. Branconio chamberlain of Leo X Medici (1513/21)

It was demolished in the seventeenth century to open the new Piazza Rusticucci which took its name from the palace

It was one of the architectural masterpieces of the Renaissance, the archetype of an architectural style derived from ephemeral scenes of parties and theater

“The prestige of the owner suggested to Sanzio a reference to a precise classical model, the exedra of the Trajan's Markets. Correspondence between the virtues of the emperor saved from limbo and the contemporary patron are part of a wider symmetry established between the old Roman Empire and the monarchy of the popes” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (tenth part)

Room XI - Raphael's Influence

Vault: “Scene of Genesis with God calling upon Adam and Eve to grow and multiply” about 1612 by Antonio Viviani aka il Sordo

“Lamentation over the Dead Christ with St. Paul and a Donor” and “Lamentation” by Giacomo Raibolini aka Giacomo Francia (1486/1557) son of the more famous Francesco Francia

“Marriage of the Virgin Mary” 1526 by Vincenzo Tamagni (about 1492/1530)

“The Holy Family with St. John” by Innocenzo da Imola (about 1484/1550)

Sculpture “Eros and Anteros” by Pierino da Vinci (about 1530/53) with the two sons of Venus, representing the carnal and the spiritual love

Room XII - Raphael

Vault: “Three angels appear to Abraham announcing the pregnancy of Sarah” about 1612 Antonio Viviani aka il Sordo

“Fornarina” 1520 by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) perhaps Margherita Luti, a baker's daughter of Trastevere

“No portrait is superior to the portraits of Raphael, faithful rendering of bodily and spiritual qualities. And they are faithful to the literal truth, remarked in a most ruthless light, but rebuilt with intellectual and artistic energy, to be placed, in such genre, between the constellations” (Bernard Berenson)

“Madonna and Child,” by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47)

Panels with allegories “Pandora opens the jar of defects and Minerva reproaching Cupid” and “Madonna with Child” about 1523 by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546)

It is also known as Madonna Hertz because it was donated to the Gallery by Henrietta Hertz in 1915

“Because of some similarity with the Fornarina, it is assumed that the young girl loved by Raphael has been portrayed here in the likeness of the Virgin Mary. Unlike the master from Urbino, however, Giulio Romano shows a female figure drawn with less pronounced and gentler features, by introducing stylistic elements that are typical of the early Mannerism. As evidence of a new and subjective interpretation of the artist, the background of the sacred scene is a domestic, simple and intimate ambience, where one can see many fine details and, in the gloom beyond the door, the candor of a little dove” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Ceres” about 1512 maybe by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481/1536)

“Triptych with the Entombment of Christ” by the Dutchman Maarten van Heemskerck (1498/1574)

He lived in Rome during the years 1532/36 documenting with accurate drawings the Roman monuments and ruins

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (fourth part)

Room IV - The Serene Expression and the Strength of the Umbria and Marche Painters

Vault: “Theseus receiving the skein of thread from Ariadne” by Urbano Romanelli (about 1645/82) son of the more famous Giovanni Francesco Romanelli

The fresco was damaged by a collapse in 1968 and it was restored

“Virgin Mary and Child with Four Saints” about 1468 by Niccolò di Liberatore aka l'Alunno (about 1430/1502) who painted this polyptych with tempera on canvas

“St. Philip Benizi” 1507 by Pietro Vannucci aka Pietro Perugino (about 1450/1523)

“Part of the lost altar of the Church of the Annunziata in Florence. Perugino represented the mildness of the saint with the precise shape of the face and delicate features; through the hatched coloring he put the image in relation to the natural and artificial sources of light” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“The transparency of the color and the clarity of the chromatic range give the work an extraordinary brightness” (Michela Ulivi)

“St. Peter” and “St. Michael the Archangel” by Pietro Alemanno (active 1475/98) here clearly influenced by Carlo Crivelli

Fresco fragment “Head of a Young Man” maybe by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520)

ALBERINI PALACE

PALAZZO ALBERINI

Via del Banco di S. Spirito 12

Maybe begun in 1512 by Donato Bramante (1444/1514) with the ground floor

Continued in the years 1515/19 maybe by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546) or Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520) for Giulio Alberini and leased to the Florentine bankers Bonaccorso Rucellai and Bernardo da Verrazzano

Completed in 1521 by Pietro Rosselli (c.1474/after 1531)

It was later called PALAZZO CICCIAPORCI

Heavily restored for the Calderai family in 1866 by Antonio Sarti (1797/1880)

After a restoration of the Studio Gigli that lasted two years, in 2009 the palace became the HEADQUARTERS OF THE GUCCI FASHION HOUSE