1548/50 for
Cardinal Girolamo Capodiferro maybe by Giulio Merisi
(1508/87) and Girolamo da Carpi (1501/56), most
likely by Bartolomeo Baronino (1511/54)
FAÇADE
decorated in stucco with eight statues of Roman characters (Trajan, Pompey,
Fabius Maximus, Romulus, Numa, Claudio Marcello, Caesar and Augustus), and
in the courtyard “Centaurs”, “Hunting fairs” and “Legendary divine couples” (Hercules
and Omphale, Venus and Mars, Jupiter and Juno, Pluto and Proserpina, Amphitrite
and Neptune, Minerva and Mercury) 1556/60 by Giulio
Mazzoni (about 1525/after 1589)
“In parallel
to the fashionable painted houses makes its way an architectural trend seen in
Palazzo Spada or Villa Medici that will be assiduously attended throughout the
course of 1500s and even later, whose unequivocal archetype is the Palazzo
Branconio dell'Aquila designed by Raphael. Here the parallels with the
makeshift theater sceneries leap clear to the eyes, highlighted by common
ornamental vocabulary, full of classical references and full of busts, niches,
plaques, medals, trophies, garlands, grotesques” (Antonio Pinelli)
It was
bought in 1632 by Cardinal Bernardino Spada
Modified 1636/37 by Paolo Marucelli
(1594/1649) and Vincenzo Della Greca (1592/1661)
Modified
again in the years 1652/53 by Francesco Borromini
(1599/1667) who added the incredible PERSPECTIVE GALLERY of 8.82 m (29 feet)
that appears to be 35 m (115 feet) designed by the Augustinian father Giovanni Maria da Bitonto
“The idea
seems to be derived from the theater (Teatro Olimpico) and we must not forget
that it also has a respectable Renaissance ancestry. Bramante applied the same
illusion principle to the choir of S. Maria presso S. Satiro in Milan, which
must have been one of the first impressions of Borromini. The colonnade concept
of Palazzo Spada is therefore not typically Baroque, or has an interest rather
marginal in the work of Borromini. To overestimate its significance, as it
often happens to those who consider Baroque as a style especially interested in
optical illusion, is completely misleading” (Rudolf Wittkower)
In 1927 the
Spada family sold it to the Italian government and it became the seat of the CONSIGLIO
DI STATO (Council of State). On the same year the four rooms with the art
gallery were opened to the public
FIRST FLOOR
Corridor
of Bas-reliefs, Corridor of Stuccos and Hall
of the General Audiences where there is the so-called “Statue of Pompey”
found in about 1553 in Via dei Leutari and mistakenly believed the one before
which Julius Caesar died
No comments:
Post a Comment