Showing posts with label Piazza dell'Orologio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Piazza dell'Orologio. Show all posts

Monday, August 22, 2016

DE SANGRO PALACE

About 1575. It was completed in the second half of the seventeenth century
The architects' names are unknown
Formerly known as Palazzo Boncompagni Corcos from the name of the first owners of the original building, the Corcos, a Jewish family who converted and took up the name Boncompagni
It became property of the De Sangro family that had it built in its present form
At the end of the eighteenth century it returned back to the Boncompagni family that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, joined the seventeenth-century building to a new building with connected courtyards
The sinuous WINDOWS are among the most beautiful in Rome

Friday, March 11, 2016

BENNICELLI SPADA PALACE

PALAZZO BENNICELLI SPADA

Designed in 1660 by Francesco Borromini (1599/1667) for Monsignor Virginio Spada, Commander of the Bank of St. Spirit
He would have liked the palace to become the headquarters of the bank against the advice of the board of the bank
At his death in 1667 the Spada family was forced to buy the palace and the old Palazzo della Zecca (Palace of the Mint) by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger was chosen as the headquarters of the bank instead
Transformed and raised in late 1800s by Gaetano Koch (1849/1910) for the Bennicelli Counts
Traces of the seventeenth-century Borromini's work remain only in the courtyard
Count Adriano Bennicelli (1860/1925) was a very popular character in Rome at the time of king Humbert I and was nicknamed Conte Tacchia
“Tacchia” in Roman dialect is a piece of wood and the nickname refers to the activity of the Bennicelli family who had become rich by trading in timber. He was a very peculiar kind of person, famous for the contrast between his elegant appearance and his very vulgar attitudes