QUIRINAL PALACE (sixth part)

Room of Hercules

Coffered ceiling and frieze with trophies 1940 by Cesare Maria Crestini

Paintings over the doors “Six stories of Aeneas” brought here in 1893 from the Savoy residences:

“Aeneas sacrifices to Apollo”, “ Venus appears to Aeneas as Diana”, “Aeneas and Dido caught by the storm”, “Mercury appears to Aeneas”, “Venus deliveries the weapons to Aeneas” and “Departure of Aeneas from Carthage” 1735/38 all sublime masterpieces by Corrado Giaquinto (1703/66)

“It is with the musical theater here that the painter seems to relate more explicitly than in his other works. (...) A new aesthetic marked by the desire to affirm the seriousness of art and to restore expressive decorum starting right from the reform of opera. His characters exemplify, in terms of behaviors, a way of feeling graceful and sensitive, according to the rules of society. The Arcadian world that reigns in these paintings is made of a mixture of subtle tones in which everything is blurred and in where the epic is transformed, rejecting the extremes of tragedy and comedy” (Sara Parca)

Three tapestries from the left “Stories of Apollo”, “Stories of Minerva” and “Stories of Hercules” beginning of the eighteenth century by the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris

Hall of the Chests

It takes its name from the five chests of the sixteenth and seventeenth century

In this room Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800/23) was arrested by the French on July 9, 1809

Busts “Hector” and “Paris” beginning of nineteenth century by Pietro Fontana

Four French tapestries 1743/47 by the Gobelins manufactory in Paris

Tapestry with “History of Don Quixote” 1773 by the royal manufactory of Naples

MASCHERINO'S STAIRS

1583/85 by Ottaviano Nonni aka Ottaviano Mascherino (1524/1606)

Loggia of Honor

The center of the Gregorian Small Palace, the oldest part of the palace built by Ottaviano Nonni aka Ottaviano Mascherino for Gregory XIII Boncompagni (1572/85)

Ceiling “Allegory of the Arts” 1908 by Ernesto Ballarini (1845/1922)