Piazza Barberini | |
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| City square | |
 Piazza Barberini, painted by Ettore Roesler Franz around 1880, featuring the Triton Fountain. | |
| Location | Rome, Italy |
 Click on the map to see marker | |
| Coordinates: 41°54′13″N12°29′18″E / 41.9036°N 12.4883°E | |
Piazza Barberini is a large piazza in the centro storico or city center of Rome, Italy and situated on the Quirinal Hill. It was created in the 16th century but many of the surrounding buildings have subsequently been rebuilt.
The square is on the site of the ancient circus of Flora, where floral games took place in May to celebrate springtime. [1] The property was previously known as the "Piazza Grimana". It was purchased in 1625 by Cardinal Francesco Barberini in order to construct the Palazzo Barberini. [2] The substantial Baroque palace was built in an elevated position on the south side of the piazza. Originally, there was a large entrance gateway to the palace designed by the Baroque painter and architect Pietro da Cortona on the south east corner of the piazza but this was demolished to make way for the construction of a new road in the 19th century. However, its appearance is known from engravings and early photographs of the piazza. [lower-alpha 1]
The Palazzo contained the "Teatro Barberini", built by Bernini in 1634, and intended as a court theatre. It was entered by way of a large arch. [3]
At the centre of the piazza is the Fontana del Tritone or Triton Fountain (1642–3) sculpted by Bernini. Another fountain, the Fontana delle Api (1644), also by Bernini is in the nearby Via Vittorio Veneto but it has been reconstructed somewhat arbitrarily following its removal from its previous position on the corner of a palace where the Piazza Barberini meets the Via Sistina. [4]
Until the 18th century, the piazza was one of the locations where unidentified corpses were displayed for the public to identify. [3]
Between 1632 and 1822 an antique obelisk stood here. It was found in 1570 outside the Porta Maggiore. In 1632 it was acquired by Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) for the grounds of his new family palazzo. In 1822 Pope Pius II had it transferred to the gardens of the Villa Medici. [2]
The piazza was the site of the start of the "Triumph of strawberries", a procession of carriages, carts, and agricultural floats adorned with strawberries and festoons of flowers with a statue of S.Antonio at the head. It was led by the oldest peasant to Piazza della Rotonda, where amid folk dancing, fresh strawberries were distributed to those present. [3]
In 1935 the Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni (INA) bought the complex bounded by Piazza Barberini, Via Vittorio Veneto, Via dei Cappuccini (formerly Via Ferrea) and Via della Purificazione; but then had to fend off a purchase by the Giornale d’Italia, backed by the minister for the Press and Propaganda. [5]
Today, the piazza is large crossroad for Rome's traffic and, since 1980, has accommodated a station on Line A of the Rome Metro, called Barberini – Fontana di Trevi . 
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Gian LorenzoBernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful ..." In addition, he was a painter and a man of the theatre: he wrote, directed and acted in plays, for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches.
The Quirinal Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian head of state, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy "the Quirinal" has come to stand for the Italian president. The Quirinal Palace has an extension of 1.2 million square feet.
Fontana del Tritone is a seventeenth-century fountain in Rome, by the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Commissioned by his patron, Pope Urban VIII, the fountain is located in the Piazza Barberini, near the entrance to the Palazzo Barberini that Bernini helped to design and construct for the Barberini, Urban's family. This fountain should be distinguished from the nearby Fontana dei Tritoni by Carlo Francesco Bizzaccheri in Piazza Bocca della Verità which features two Tritons.
Piazza Navona is a public open space in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. The ancient Romans went there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as "Circus Agonalis". It is believed that over time the name changed to in avone to navone and eventually to navona.
Piazza di Spagna, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, is one of the most famous squares in Rome, Italy. It owes its name to the Palazzo di Spagna, the seat of the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See. There is also the famed Column of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.
Borgo is the 14th rione of Rome, Italy. It is identified by the initials R. XIV and is included within Municipio I.
Castro Pretorio is the 18th rione of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials R. XVIII, and it is located within the Municipio I. The rione takes its name by the ruins of the Castrum Praetorium, the barracks of the Praetorian Guard, included in the Aurelian Walls.
The Palazzo Barberini is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today, it houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome.
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor.
Carlo Fontana (1634/1638–1714) was an Italian architect originating from today's Canton Ticino, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture.
Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in Rome. The name in modern Italian literally means "People's Square", but historically it derives from the poplars after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.
The Fontana della Barcaccia is a Baroque-style fountain found at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. Pope Urban VIII commissioned Pietro Bernini in 1623 to build the fountain as part of a prior Papal project to erect a fountain in every major piazza in Rome. The fountain was completed between 1627 and 1629 by Pietro possibly along with the help of his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini, especially after his father's death on August 29, 1629.
Barberini–Fontana di Trevi is an underground station on Line A of the Rome Metro, inaugurated in 1980 and situated under Piazza Barberini in Trevi. Originally, the station was simply named Barberini, and the name was extended in 2000.
Fontana delle Api is a fountain located in the Piazza Barberini in Rome where the Via Veneto enters the piazza. It was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and completed in April 1644.
The Palazzo di Propaganda Fide is a palace located in Rome, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, then Francesco Borromini. Since 1626, it has housed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and since 1929 is an extraterritorial property of the Holy See. The complex includes a dormitory and chapel as well.
The Fontana delle Tartarughe is a fountain of the late Italian Renaissance, located in Piazza Mattei, in the Sant'Angelo district of Rome, Italy. It was built between 1580 and 1588 by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The bronze turtles around the upper basin, usually attributed either to Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi, were added in either 1658 or 1659 when the fountain was restored.
The Teatro delle Quattro Fontane, also known as the Teatro Barberini, was an opera theatre in Rome, Italy, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and built in 1632 by the Barberini family. From 1632 to 1637 it was located in a large room inside the Palazzo Barberini at the Quattro Fontane. In 1639, it was moved to a new, free-standing building, northeast of the palace and adjacent to the garden. By 1830, the theatre had closed, and the building was used for other purposes. It was demolished in 1932.
The Palazzo Rusticucci-Accoramboni is a reconstructed late Renaissance palace in Rome. Erected by the will of Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci, it was designed by Domenico Fontana and Carlo Maderno joining together several buildings already existing. Due to that, the building was not considered a good example of architecture. Originally lying along the north side of the Borgo Nuovo street, after 1667 the building faced the north side of the large new square located west of the new Saint Peter's Square, designed in those years by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The square, named Piazza Rusticucci after the palace, was demolished in 1937–40 because of the erection of the new Via della Conciliazione. In 1940 the palace was dismantled and rebuilt with a different footprint along the north side of the new avenue, constructed between 1936 and 1950, which links St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican City to the center of Rome.
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