The first
great work of civic Renaissance architecture in Rome, begun in the years
1455/64 for Cardinal Pietro Barbo
Expanded
over the years 1465/68 after the election of Cardinal Pietro Barbo as Pope Paul II Barbo
(1464/71)
1468/71 WING
ALONG VIA DEL PLEBISCITO and COURTYARD which remained incomplete. Later on
Cardinal Marco Barbo and Cardinal Lorenzo Cybo, nephew of Innocent VIII Cybo
(1484/92), completed it
Intervention
of Pope Paul III Farnese (1534/49) who connected it to his tower on Capitol
Hill
It was used
as a summer residence of the popes, before the construction of Palazzo
del Quirinale, until 1564, when Pius IV Medici (1559/64) sold it partly to
Venice to be the residence of their Ambassadors
It later
became wholly owned by the Republic of Venice
In 1797 it
passed to France and in 1814 to Austria
In 1916 it
was confiscated by the Italian government and, after a restoration in the years
1924/30, it became a museum
Between
1929 and 1943 the reception rooms housed the office of Benito Mussolini
and the Fascist Grand Council here on June 25, 1943 voted against
Mussolini and took his political power away from him
The
architect of the palace is unknown, but it is the first example in Rome from
the model of a Renaissance Tuscan building according to the principles of Leon
Battista Alberti
In the VAULT OF THE
VESTIBULE
there is the first example ever of modern use of cast concrete, a construction
technique that had not been used since the ancient times: a crucial step for
the development of technical architecture, fruit and expression of Western
civilization
Among the
artists who worked here for sure, using also travertine taken from the Colosseum: Giacomo da Pietrasanta (active since 1452/d. about
1497), Francesco da Borgo S. Sepolcro and Meo del Caprino
BALCONY
1714 for
the Venetian ambassador Niccolò Duodo
CHAPEL OF
OUR LADY OF GRACE
1600,
rebuilt in 1911
Altar 1682
by G.B. Contini (1641/1723)
“Madonna
and Child” by Bernardino Gagliardi (1609/1660)
On the
right “Flight into Egypt” by Francesco Cozza
(1605/82)
GARDEN
Fountain “Marriage
of Venice to the Sea” 1729 by Carlo Monaldi
(about 1690/1760), restored in 1930 by Giovanni Prini
(1877/1958)
1467/68 maybe by Baccio Pontelli
(about 1450/92)
1930 by Luigi Marangoni (1872/1950)
ROOMS OF
THE PAULINE PALACE
Royal
Hall, Hall of Battles
(originally Consistory), Hall of the Globe and Apartment Barbo
subdivided and altered over the eighteenth and nineteenth century, restored in
the years 1924/30
These rooms
are currently used for temporary exhibitions
The painted
decoration was widely integrated
In the
Hall of the Globe, with the famous balcony from which Mussolini used to address
the Italians, the painted architecture is attributed to Andrea Mantegna
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