BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (ninth part)

FIRST FLOOR
Room X - Fiorentines

Vault: “Flood” about 1612 by Antonio Viviani aka il Sordo (1560/1620) pupil of Federico Fiori aka Barocci

The painting refers to the 1612 wedding between Mario Sforza and Renée of Lorraine, who lived on this side of the building when it used to be the main body of Villa Sforza

In the frame there are the symbols of the two families in stucco: the dolphin for Lorraine and the lion for Sforza

These rooms on the first floor are the apartment built in 1597 for Ludovico Sforza

“Mary Magdalene” about 1501 by Piero di Cosimo (1462/1521) a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, from whom he got his name and with whom he also worked in the Sistine Chapel

“Madonna with Child” by Domenico Puligo (1492/1527)

“Madonna of the girdle” maybe by Giovanni Lorenzo Larciani, formerly known as the Master of Kress Landscapes (1484/1527)

St. Thomas had a vision of the Virgin Mary who gave him the girdle as evidence which he had invoked of her Assumption to Heaven, to which he hadn't attended along with the other apostles

The story is told in an apocryphal text of the fifth or sixth century and the girdle is preserved in the Cathedral of Prato near Florence

“Madonna and Child with Sts. Joseph and Peter Martyr” and “Holy Family” about 1529 by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea Del Sarto (1486/1531)

His art is a synthesis of compositions inspired by Raphael and technique which adopts the atmospheric chiaroscuro of Leonardo da Vinci

“The famous chiaroscuro of Andrea del Sarto with its smooth shades happily mitigates the hard chromatic Florentine style (...). Andrea is infinitely superior to most of his fellow Florentines for the sake of pleasing color and for pictorial harmony, even though his works, compared to those of the Venetians, however, have a look arbitrarily polychrome and coloristic. Nor should we wonder why in his compositions deep shadows give way to sudden light: Andrea is still a drawing-oriented Tuscan, who with these means seeks to increase the plasticity conquered by Michelangelo and, in the spirit of the new age, supports his efforts with contrasts of every kind” (Hermann Voss)

“Madonna and Child with St. John” by Tommaso di Stefano Lunetti (1490/1564)

This painting was inspired by a lost work by Raphael

“The fundamental matrix of his work is the manner of Lorenzo di Credi, his teacher, from whom Lunetti, according to Vasari, was able to imitate the clarity in the rendering of surfaces, polished and molded, evidenced by his widespread use of light. From the master he also took his extreme attention to detail, especially the faces, and the symmetry in placing the main figures” (Valerio Da Gai - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (eighth part)

Room VIII - The Wandering and Visionary Renaissance Style of Pedro Fernandez

Vault: “Orpheus taming animals with music” by Camillo Spallucci (1582/1605)

“Vision of Blessed Amedeo Menez de Sylva” about 1514 Pedro Fernandez de Murcia (active 1503/23)

The painting was kept in the Church of the Hermitage in Montorio Romano in Sabina, where the Franciscan mystic had his visions

“The artist in the representation of the heavenly temple architecture is clearly inspired by Donato Bramante, author of the temple built on the Janiculum Hill, at the legendary site of the crucifixion of St. Peter, and the cave where the same Amedeo in Rome since 1472, spiritual dialogue with the Archangel Gabriel. Pedro Fernandez joined in this model the stimuli received by Leonardo, evident in the faces of some people characterized, and Raphael, in the composition reminiscent of the Dispute of the Sacrament in the Vatican Stanze” (Official Web Site Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Weeping Madonna” by anonymous Flemish-Neapolitan artist

“St. Sebastian and St. Catherine” by the Neapolitan Francesco Pagano (1471/92)

Room IX - Details of Reality and Soul. The Northern Painters

Vault: “Orfeo ed Euridice” by Camillo Spallucci (1582/1605)

“Pilgrims on the tomb of St. Sebastian” about 1498 by Josse Lieferinxe (active 1493/1508) from Provence

The painting has also a documentary value because it shows the Basilica of St. Sebastian with a thirteenth-century ciborium now disappeared, as well as the custom of pilgrims to put their bandages in contact with the relics of the saint

“Crucifixion” maybe second half of 1400s by Simon Marmion (about1425/89)

“Nativity and Presentation in the Temple” early 1500s by an anonymous Flemish artist

“Portrait of the Bride” and “Portrait of the bridegroom” 1640 by Jan Cornelisz Verspronck (about 1607/62)

“The Flemish portraits of the seventeenth century that have a dedicated wall in the room date to a later period, but they belong to same culture of the Nordic region. The contrast of the 'non colors' black and white of the laces and of the dress emphasizes the spirit of Dutch portraiture of the period. Despite the wealth and status of the middle class clients, the characters express the moral qualities of dignity and industriousness” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (seventh part)

Room VII - Lights and Colors in the Fog. Venetian, Lombard and Emilian Painters

Vault: “Muses with Apollo and Minerva” beginning of 1600s by an anonymous artist of the seventeenth-century

“Madonna with Child” by Niccolò Rondinelli (about 1450/1510)

“St. Jerome Penitent” 1503 by Marco Palmezzano (1459/1539)

“Christ crucified” and “Madonna with St. John the Evangelist” by the Lombard Bernardino Butinone (about 1450/1510)

“One of the most interesting personalities of Lombard painting of the time, Butinone stands out for the search of clear shapes, almost plastic, with a deep coloring, highlighted by blackish shades, for a valuable sense of matter, derived from the study of Mantegna and of the painters from Ferrara” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Portrait of a Young Man” maybe by Lorenzo Lotto (about 1480/1556)

“The inspiration to Alvise Vivarini and Antonello da Messina is evident in the geometric regularity with which the character's face is drawn by the slight movement of the head and by his gaze quietly melancholic: the painter was to become a specialist in the representation of states of mind” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (sixth part)

Room VI - Florentines and other Tuscans. Refined minds and talents in the workshops

Vault: “Cherub on amphora riding waves” by Urbano Romanelli (about 1645/82)

In the upper part there is a scroll “et ultra”, the motto of Cardinal Francesco Barberini

“Madonna Adoring the Child with an Angel” late 1400s by Gherardo di Giovanni di Miniato (about 1445/97)

“Gherardo di Giovanni, who worked at the Medici court, was a painter, illustrator and musician. His interest in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, a friend of his, is reflected in the atmospheric effects of landscape and in the figure of the angel of the Madonna adoring the child. To a Nordic influence is owed a taste for details, like the Gothic church symbolically placed at the perspectival center of the composition” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Crucifixion” early 1500s by Girolamo di Benvenuto (about 1470/1524) from Siena

“Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and Paul” by Vincenzo di Antonio Frediani (active 1481/1505) from Lucca

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (fifth part)

Room V - Antoniazzo and Lorenzo. The Thousand Faces of the Roman School

Vault: “Ship of the Argonauts with Jason showing the Golden Fleece from Colchis” by Giuseppe Passeri (1654/1714)

“Madonna and Child Enthroned with Sts. Peter and Michael” by Lorenzo da Viterbo (about 1444/72)

“In this painting, which comes from the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Cerveteri, Federico Zeri, noting the hand of a coworker in the figure of St. Michael, of lesser quality, believed that the cross above the inscription 'Laurentius Jacobi da Viterbo 1472' would indicate that the painter's death had occurred. This remains a key work to reconstruct the figure of the painter who looks to Piero della Francesca and Melozzo as well as Ferrara paintings and Mantegna, showing the variety of influences present in Lazio painting of the fifteenth century” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Nativity with Sts. Lawrence and Andrew” about 1483

“Antoniazzo, still tied to tradition, was at the forefront - along with Tuscans, Umbrians, Venetians and Flemish - in combining sacred images, landscapes and portraits. He was the head of a busy workshop active in every field of artistic production: icons, images for private devotion, ceremonial apparatuses; narrative fresco cycles and altarpieces” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Madonna and Child with Sts. Paul and Francis of Assisi” about 1487 by Antonio Aquili aka Antoniazzo Romano (about 1435-40/1508)

“The conventionality of the iconography is, however, animated by the elegant architectural solution of the pink throne defined by pilasters over which there is a rich antiquarian decoration. (...) These decorative ornamentations recall the works by Andrea Bregno and his workshop in the Roman funerary monuments of the seventh and eighth decade of the fifteenth century. (...). The cartoon of the Virgin and Child would be copied in the panel with the Madonna and Sts. Francis and Anthony of Padua today at S. Antonio dei Portoghesi” (Anna Cavallaro)

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)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (third part)

Room II - Colors and Gold of the Fourteenth Century

In the vault there used to be the now lost “Parnassus” by Andrea Camassei

“Stories of Christ” about 1305 by Giovanni da Rimini (active 1292/1309)

“The work had formerly been assigned to Giotto himself, then to one of his followers in Rimini, who Roberto Longhi (1935) first identified with Giovanni da Rimini, one of the most significant painters of the Giotto followers in Rimini (...). Giotto had left in Rimini his stylistic imprint with his activities in the Malatesta temple in the years 1300/1303” (Lorenza Mochi Onori)

“Madonna with Child” about 1335 by the Master of Palazzo Venezia

Room III - Virtues of Ornament and Perspective. Between Late-Gothic and Early Renaissance

Vault: “Bellerophon kills the chimera” by Giuseppe Passeri (1654/1714)

“Annunciation and two devotees” about 1435 and Madonna and Child known as “Our Lady of Tarquinia” 1437 by Filippo Lippi (about 1406/69)

“The light that breaks through the opened windows, reveals the plastic form, affects the complex drapery that covers the legs of the Virgin, illuminates the surface of the mottled marble throne, whose platform seems out of context. The Flemish influence is very strong, not only because of the windows that connect the interior with the exterior, but also in how symbolic elements like the book or the thalamus of the Virgin are depicted, as they weather a domestic reality of everyday life. Allegory therefore is not evident, but, as in Flemish art, it is concealed by a seemingly casual presentation. Masterly is also the control of the composition in terms of architectural space” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“As if the point of view was too close, the figures are not included in the perspective depth of the room, but widen and flatten, forming a large screen in front of the space of the background. They take light from the outside, such as forms emerging from Della Robbia's reliefs” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

“Madonna with Child” Michele Giambono (1420/62)

“With great decorative skill, he represent space with the mantle of Mary resting on the stone edge” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

“Coronation of the Virgin Mary” Niccolò di Pietro (active 1394/1430)

BARBERINI PALACE - NATIONAL ART GALLERY (second part)

GALLERIA NAZIONALE D’ARTE ANTICA

Established in 1895 when the collections Corsini and Torlonia were united

It was later enriched by the collections Odescalchi, Hertz and Chigi but without ever finding an appropriate location

It was moved here in 1949 and partially open to the public in 1953

The exhibit was rearranged in 1984 when the works of the Galleria Corsini were take back to their original location in Palazzo Corsini

The collection comprises 1445 paintings and 2067 objects of decorative art

Finally, in 2011 this wonderful museum had a good and extensive exhibition, although not yet complete: nine new rooms were opened on the ground floor, in addition to six other new rooms on the first floor and eleven on the second floor, which, added to the rooms already open, bring the total to THIRTY-EIGHT ROOMS including the Pietro da Cortona Hall, the Marbles Room, the Oval Room and the Corvi Room

It has finally become a wonderful and charming museum

A visit to this museum is a veritable trip in the Italian figurative art history from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

GROUND FLOOR

Room I - The Icon and the Crosses

Vault: “Ulysses and the Sirens” about 1670/78 Giacinto Camassei, a relative (perhaps nephew, brother or cousin) of the more famous Andrea Camassei

“Advocate Madonna or Haghiosoritissa” about 1050/75 of Roman school

“Crucifix” about 1250 Simone and Machilone

“Cross painted” end 1100s/begin 1200s by the workshop of Alberto Sotio

“These crosses bear witness to the technical skill of the medieval craftsmen and their workshops, the intimate connection between painting, sculpture and jewelry and the functional relationship with architecture. They also summarize the passage from the iconography of Christ triumphant over cross, according to Western tradition, to the Byzantine one of the dying Christ, spreading to Italy thanks to the Franciscans” (Official website of the Barberini Gallery - www.galleriabarberini.beniculturali.it)

BARBERINI PALACE (first part)

PALAZZO BARBERINI

Via Quattro Fontane 13

Built by incorporating the existing villa of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, later property of the Sforza family and known as Villa Sforza

Cardinal Francesco Barberini bought it from the Sforza family in 1625 and Carlo Maderno (1556/1629) began the construction of the palace in the years 1625/29 by

After the death of Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) took over the direction of the work in the years 1629/1633 and retained the original design conceiving, however, the central hall, the windowed loggia and the large square staircase

Francesco Borromini (1599/1667) participated in the works designing two windows in the central part of the top floor, the side wings, some decorative elements and the SPIRAL STAIRCASE

The actual Borromini's contribution to the works led by Bernini, however, is still the subject of academic debate

“The derivation from the windows in the attic of Maderno's façade of St. Peter's is obvious, but the ears-shaped wavy streamers attached to them, as well as the segmented upper part with ends pointing outward with an angle of 45 degrees are characteristic of Borromini's dynamic interpretation of details. Here it is already possible to see the creative force that imparts an inexplicable strength to any shape and configuration” (Rudolf Wittkower)

RAILING 1864 Francesco Azzurri (1831/1901) with TELAMONS by Adamo Tadolini (1788/1868)

The FOUNTAIN in front of the palace is by Francesco Azzurri

In the area of the building the ancient TEMPLE OF QUIRINUS was situated

At the end of the rear ramp “Ruined Bridge” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and “Bertel Thorvaldsen Monument” (1770/1844) who had his study on the top floor of the former theater from 1822 to 1834

Top floor home of the ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI NUMISMATICA (Italian Institute of Coins)

Villa Savorgnan de Brazzà

1936 Gustavo Giovannoni (1873/1947) and Marcello Piacentini (1881/1960)

Under the villa ruins of rooms of the second century AD in bricks including MITHRAEUM with fresco (the only one painted in Rome together with the one of S. Prisca) with “Mithra slaying the bull” and smaller panels on the sides with scenes of the god's myth

At n°18 in Via Barberini former BARBERINI THEATREThe original theater built in 1634 with a façade by Pietro Da Cortona was destroyed and rebuilt in 1932 by Marcello Piacentini using some original architectural elements

BARBERINI PALACE ON VIA DEI GIUBBONARI

PALAZZO BARBERINI AI GIUBBONARI

Via dei Giubbonari 41

WING FACING VIA DEI GIUBBONARI 1591 by Flaminio Ponzio (1560/1613) for Maffeo Barberini who later became Pope Urban VIII (1623/44) who wanted to enlarge and unite the houses bought in 1581 by his uncle, Monsignor Francesco Barberini constituting the CASA GRANDE BARBERINI

Extension 1623/24 on Via dei Giubbonari by Carlo Maderno (1556/1629) and his colleague Filippo Breccioli (1574/after 1627)

FAÇADE ON PIAZZA DEL MONTE, ATRIUM AND ROOF TERRACE 1638/44 and 1653/58 by Francesco Contini (1599/1669) for Taddeo Barberini

In 1734 Prince Francesco Barberini gave it to the Discalced Carmelites, who transformed the atrium into the Cappella dei Ss. Giovanni Della Croce e Teresa (Chapel of Sts. John of the Cross and Theresa)

In 1759 it was sold to the Monte di Pietà (the central Roman pawnshop), it was extended towards Via dei Pettinari and an arch was built to connect it with the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà

The new atrium and the monumental staircase was designed by Nicola Giansimoni (active since1766/died 1800)

In 1819 twelve granite columns of the chapel were removed and placed in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican Museums

In 1870 it became property of the municipality who restored it

It is now the HIGH SCHOOL VITTORIA COLONNA and the ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TRENTO E TRIESTE

“What was notable is that his palace quickly became as an Academy of the most literate people who lived in Rome at the time. There were learned men enjoying virtuous and noble conversations, and also he had his courting of skilled people, not only in the most agreeable and most cultured letters, but in every other discipline and science as well” (Andrea Nicoletti - Life of Pope Urban VIII)

PALAZZO BALESTRA

PALAZZO BALESTRA

Piazza Ss. Apostoli 49

1644 maybe Mattia De Rossi (1637/95) for the Marquis G.B. Muti Papazzurri

It was known as Palazzo Muti-Papazzurri until it was acquired in the nineteenth century by the Balestra family

Now it is property of the insurance company RAS

The Stuart family lived there from 1718 to 1807, including the pretender to the throne of England James III Stuart (1688/1766)

Here the last representative of the family died in 1807, the Cardinal Henry Stuart duke of York, son of James III, the fourth and final “Jacobite” (i.e. the Catholic line of the Stuart family) pretender to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland

He would have been called Henry IX

The Stuart family reigned over Scotland from 1371 to 1707 and over England, Scotland and Ireland from 1603 to 1707

BALEANI PALACE

PALAZZO BALEANI

Via Larga/Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 244

1627/28 maybe by Francesco Peparelli (active since 1626/d. 1641) with original FAÇADE ON VIA LARGA which was opened in 1630 opposite the Chiesa Nuova

Formerly known as Palazzo Cerri and Palazzo Caucci

FAÇADE ON CORSO VITTORIO EMANUELE II rebuilt in 1922 by Pietro Romagnoli who demolished the block with the exception of Francesco Paparelli's seventeenth-century wing and rebuilt one office building that took up the seventeenth-century façade design with the technique of “fake antique”

Now is the headquarters of CIMS, Centro di Ricerca per le Malattie Sociali (Research Center for Social Diseases) of La Sapienza University

BALDASSINI PALACE

PALAZZO BALDASSINI

Via delle Coppelle 35

1514/20 early masterpiece by Antonio Cordini aka Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1483/1546) for the jurist Melchiorre Baldassini

It was later became property of the Palma family and the name changed to PALAZZO PALMA

Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed there in 1875

Now is the headquarters of the ISTITUTO LUIGI STURZO who had the building restored

Luigi Sturzo (1871/1959) was an Italian priest and politician, founder of the Italian Popular Party in 1919. He vigorously opposed Mussolini

Under the loggia in a metope there is the depiction of an elephant, Annone. The elephant really existed and was given in 1513 as a gift to Leo X (1513/21) by the king of Portugal Manuel de Aviz

Annone became an exotic celebrity in Rome, but died after three years and, apparently, he was buried at the Vatican

GROUND FLOOR

Vault with “Grotesque” 1517/19 by Giovanni Ricamatore aka Giovanni da Udine (1487/1564)

FIRST FLOOR

Friezes and frescoes by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47) and Giovanni da Udine

ASTALLI PALACE

PALAZZO ASTALLI

Via S. Marco 8

Built at the end of 1500s for the Muti family

It was bought by the Astalli family who had it expanded from 1642 onwards by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi (1616/95)

It was completed in 1698 after the De Rossi's death

In 1827 it became the seat of the Reverenda Fabbrica di S. Pietro (Reverend Factory of St. Peter's Basilica), the institution that takes care of St. Peter's Basilica

1930/32 significant changes that reduced the building: the façade of Via S. Marco was demolished and rebuilt further back for the widening of the street, the façade of Via Aracoeli was shortened and the roof terrace was rebuilt

On the front overlooking Via S. Marco now there are only seven windows whereas before 1930 there were ten

The great ballroom also ended up being destroyed, where memorable carnival dancing parties used to be held. Some frescoes were removed and are now kept in the Museum of Rome

VATICAN CITY APOSTOLIC PALACE

PALAZZO APOSTOLICO DI CITTÀ DEL VATICANO

Città del Vaticano

Current residence of the pope, also known as the Palazzo Sistino (Sistine Palace), designed by Domenico Fontana (1543/1607) for Sixtus V Peretti (1585/90)

In this palace however, neither Sixtus V nor his successors for three centuries, would put a permanent abode preferring other residences, particularly the Palazzo del Quirinale (Quirinal Palace)

The pope’s bedroom is at the right corner on the top floor of the building, next to the private study from which he appears for his Sunday Angelus prayer. The window from which he appears is the second from the right

The pope appears in the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica only on the day of his election, on Christmas, Easter and when he proclaims new saints

On the east side of the top floor there are in succession: bathroom, dental studio, dining room and kitchen. In the penultimate floor is the ceremonial apartment

Pope Francis (2013) decided not to use the Apostolic Palace as his home preferring to live in the Casa di S. Marta. He uses it only for ceremonial purposes

TORRIONE DEGLI SVIZZERI (Tower of the Swiss)

To the northeast of the building

1447/48 maybe by Antonio da Firenze o Bernardo Rossellino (1409/64) for Nicholas V Parentucelli(1447/55)

Originally the height was about 50 m (146 feet), but in 1454, perhaps because of the excessive height, the foundations gave way. It remains today only the much restored lower part

Now the tower is the seat of the Vatican bank, the ISTITUTO OPERE DI RELIGIONE (IOR) or the Institute for Works of Religion). In here work most of the about 110 employees of the bank

ANTONELLI PALACE

PALAZZO ANTONELLI

Largo Magnanapoli 158

Built in the sixteenth century. The exact date and the name of the architect are unknown

Renovated 1854/69 by Andrea Busiri Vici (1818/1911) for Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, who never actually lived here, preferring his other palace on Via di Monserrato now known as Palazzo Capponi Antonelli

It was used to store the valuable and rare collection of sixteenth century precious stones owned by the family

It was also renovated in 1875 for the opening of Via Nazionale when the garden ended up being wiped out

Now there are offices of the Bank of Italy, which owns the property

At the end of the atrium there is a section of the Servian Wall dating back to 378 BC with an arch of tufa blocks forming part of a room for ballistic catapults

ALTIERI PALACE

PALAZZO ALTIERI

Piazza del Gesù 49

1650/55 masterpiece by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi (1616/95) with Mattia De Rossi (1637/95) for Cardinal G.B. Altieri

With the election of Emilio Altieri as Pope Clement X (1670/76) widening and completion by De Rossi with the purchase of adjacent houses, except that of a lady known as “Mrs. Bertha” who refused to sell her house to the pope and ended up having it surrounded and incorporated in the palace

Renewed later by Alessandro Speroni, Clemente Orlandi (1694/1775) and, in the years 1787/94, by Giuseppe Barberi (1746/1809) for the Paluzzi Albertoni family

“The rooms were architecturally and decoratively executed from projects and under the direction of Barberi, who tempered the eighteenth century style with a wonderful pre-neoclassical taste. For exquisite elegance, proportions, color harmony and refinement we do not know in Rome any example of a higher quality of interior architecture in the second half of the eighteenth century. The work (...) gives the idea of the balance, great inventive and artistic capability of Barberi, who, succeeded as architect of the Altieri to Clemente Orlandi, began work as early as February 1787, directing operations for seven years” (Andrea Busiri Vici - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

It is currently a building occupied in part by the Italian Banking Association ABI, and by other two banks FINNAT and Banca Popolare di Novara, in part by private owners including descendents of the Altieri, whose direct line became extinct in 1955

Here lived the writer Carlo Levi

The actress Anna Magnani lived in the attic for 20 years and died there in 1974

STAIRCASE

Statue of “Barbarian prisoner” found at the Theatre of Pompey

ANTECHAMBER OF THE HALL

In the vault spectacular “Apotheosis of Romulus” 1676 by Domenico Maria Canuti (1626/84) in a quadrature by Enrico Haffner (1640/1702)

HALL OF THE HEARINGS OR OF THE CLEMENCY

In the vault “Triumph of Mercy” or sacred and Christian Rome accompanied by Peace and Virtue crowned by Honour during the reign of Clement X 1674/77 by Carlo Maratta (1625/1713)

“Maratta wished to restore the autonomous nature of the painted surface: once more the painting is framed in a clear and simple way. He also wanted to restore the autonomy of the individual figure. He returned to the classic principle of composing with a few figures and with an evenly lit palette that invites you to focus attention on the figure designed plastically, on its attitude and gestures. He almost abandons upside down perspectives, but, characteristic fact, he doesn't rediscover either the austere classicism of the set out framework of early Baroque. Moreover, his figures are themselves more baroque and less Raphael-like than he liked to believe. Maratta had gone quite forward towards the reconciliation of two opposing tendencies, the baroque and classical. He followed a nice middle ground” (Rudolf Wittkower)

APARTMENTS

Vaults and lunettes painted by Salvator Rosa (1615/73), Felice Giani (1758/1823), Cristoforo Unterberger (1732/98) and Francesco Cozza (1605/82)

ROOM OF THE MOSAIC

Cabinet in the apartment of Prince Paluzzo Altieri

In the vault painting “Apotheosis of Romulus” by Stefano Tofanelli (1752/1812)

Above the doors “Scene of the Rape of the Sabines” of four important painters of the second half of 1700s: Giuseppe Cades (1750/99), Francesco Manno (1752/1831), Anton von Maron (1733/1808) and Antonio Cavallucci (1752/95)

On the floor “Mosaic of Mars and Rhea Silvia” found in Ostia Antica in 1783

HALL OF MIRRORS

In the vault “Chariot of the Sun” 1675 by Fabrizio Chiari (about 1615/95) and paintings by Giuseppe Cades and Salvator Rosa

“Landscapes” 1794/95 by Giuseppe Barberi (1746/1809) and Francesco Di Capua

LIBRARY

Now it is the Altieri family archive

“Bust of Pope Clement X” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) with spectacular curtain stucco supported by angels in flight by Giacomo Filippo Schor son of Giovanni Paolo Schor