Formerly
known as the Palazzo Aldobrandini from the name of the family that in
1578 bought several buildings pre-existing in the area
1580/86 Matteo Bartolani da Città di Castello (about
1527/about 1598) with the help of Giacomo Della Porta
(1533/1602) and Carlo Maderno (1556/1629) for
the Aldobrandini family
Continued
1623/26 for Cardinal G.B. Deti, related to the Aldobrandini, who lived in the
wing on Via del Corso
Bought in
1659 by the princes Mario and Agostino Chigi and completed in 1661 by Felice Della Greca (1626/77) and from 1677 by G.B. Contini (1641/1723)
ATTIC 1696
PORTAL ON PIAZZA COLONNA 1739
Since 1870
the Chigi family rented it to the Austrian government and from 1878 it was the
Austrian Embassy
They sold
it to the Italian State in 1916 and since then it has been the Ministry of the
Colonies, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, since 1961, the seat of the PRESIDENZA
DEL CONSIGLIO DEI MINISTRI (Presidency of the Council of Ministers)
Mussolini
also lived there before moving to Palazzo Venezia and made some speeches from
the balcony on the corner between Piazza Colonna and Via del Corso. That corner
was therefore defined by the fascist propaganda like the Prow of Italy
COURTYARD
Felice
Della Greca with
fountain of 1740
STAIRCASE
1659/61 by Felice Della Greca with ancient sculptures
ROOM OF THE
GLOBES
Two “Wooden Globes” 1636 and 1632 representing the terrestrial
sphere and the celestial sphere
HALL OF THE
COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
Frieze with
“Landscapes and female figures” 1665 by Giovanni
Paolo Schor (1615/74)
Tapestries
on the walls by artists of the school of Peter Paul
Rubens (1577/1640)
GOLDEN HALL
1765/67
stunning decorations made by a team of artists led by Giovanni
Stern (1734/94) (father of Raffaele Stern) including Luigi Valadier (1726/85) who did the metal decorations
Wonderful
explosion of eighteenth-century decorative glory executed for the wedding of
Prince Sigismondo Chigi with Maria Flaminia Odescalchi
In the ceiling
“Diana and Endymion” 1668 by G.B.
Gaulli aka Baciccio (1639/1709) moved here from Palazzo
Odescalchi
Above the
doors “Landscapes” by the Flemish Jean de Momper
(1614/88)
GALLERY OF
THE CEREMONIAL APARTMENT
Paintings
by Flaminio Allegrini (1587/1663)
ROOMS OF
THE MARINE AND OF THE COUNTRYSIDE LANDSCAPES
The Marine
Room is the dining room of the President of the Council of Ministers
Frescoes by the French Adrien
Manglard (1695/1760) who specialized in this type of paintings.
Brilliant illusionistic perspectives with fake architecture around doors and
windows
Adrien
Manglard moved twenty years old from Lyon to Rome, where he remained for the
rest of his life. It is another gem of eighteenth-century Rome unfortunately
hidden from the public
CHIGI LIBRARY
G.B. Contini for Prince Agostino
Chigi
The
collection of 26,000 works was given by Mussolini to the pope in 1923, but the
fine shelves of the end of the seventeenth century are still intact
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