Palazzo Barberini | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Baroque |
Location | Rome, Italy |
Coordinates | 41°54′13″N12°29′25″E / 41.90361°N 12.49028°E |
Construction started | 1625 |
Completed | 1633 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Gian Lorenzo Bernini Carlo Maderno Francesco Borromini |
The Palazzo Barberini (English: Barberini Palace) 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.
Around 1549 Cardinal Alessandro Sforza came into possession of the garden/vineyard of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi on the Quirinal Hill, where the Sforza family, had a palazzetto built. The sloping, semi-urban site was purchased in 1625 from Alessandro Sforza, Duca di Segni by Maffeo Barberini, of the Barberini family, who became Pope Urban VIII. [1]
Three great architects worked to create the Palazzo, each contributing his own style and character to the building. [2] Carlo Maderno, then at work extending the nave of St Peter's, was commissioned to enclose the Villa Sforza within a vast Renaissance block along the lines of Palazzo Farnese; [3] however, the design quickly evolved into a precedent-setting combination of an urban seat of princely power combined with a garden front that had the nature of a suburban villa with a semi-enclosed garden.
Maderno began in 1627, assisted by his nephew Francesco Borromini. When Maderno died in 1629, Borromini was passed over and the commission to oversee construction was awarded to Bernini, [4] a young prodigy then better known as a sculptor. Borromini stayed on regardless and the two architects worked together, albeit briefly, on this project and at the Palazzo Spada. Works were completed by Bernini in 1633.
The palace was inhabited mainly by Pope Urban VIII’s two nephews Francesco and Taddeo with Taddeo and his family living in one wing and Francesco in the other. Francesco established there the Arazzia Barberini or Barberini Tapestry works in 1627 which remained open until 1679. [5]
In February 1634, a revised version of Il Sant'Alessio , was performed at the Teatro delle Quattro Fontane, the Cardinal's private opera theater in the Palazzo. [6] The Cardinal had written the libretto and Stefano Landi the music. [7] He founded a library at the Palazzo which included ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts. Also at the Palazzo Barberini, he initiated a small natural science museum and botanical garden and his collections attested to his interests in ancient sculpture, numismatics and inscriptions. In 1902, the large Biblioteca Barberina was purchased by Pope Leo XIII and became part of the Vatican holdings. [8]
After the Wars of Castro and the death of Urban VIII, the palace was confiscated by Pamphili Pope Innocent X and was only returned to the Barberini in 1653.
Christina of Sweden visited Rome in December 1655. Nobles vied for her attention and treated her to a never-ending round of fireworks, jousts, mock duels, acrobatics, and operas. She was welcomed at the Palazzo Barberini on 28 February by a few hundred privileged spectators, as she watched an amazing carousel in the courtyard. [9]
Maderno envisioned a floor plan in the shape of an "H", with the Sforza wing facing the piazza. A second parallel wing is connected by a central hall. Flanking the hall, two sets of stairs lead to the piano nobile, a large squared staircase by Bernini to the left and a smaller oval staircase by Borromini to the right. [4] The main block presents three tiers of great arch-headed windows, like glazed arcades, a formula that was more Venetian than Roman. On the uppermost floor, Borromini's windows are set in a false perspective that suggests extra depth, a feature that has been copied into the 20th century.
As well as Borromini's false-perspective windows reveals, other influential aspects of Palazzo Barberini that were repeated throughout Europe include the unit of a central two-storey hall backed by an oval salone and the symmetrical wings that extended forward from the main block to create a cour d'honneur .
The garden is known as a giardino segreto ("secret garden"), for its concealment from an outsider's view. It houses a monument to Bertel Thorwaldsen, who had a studio in the nearby stables of the Palazzo Barberini in 1822–1834.
The salon ceiling is graced by Pietro da Cortona's masterpiece, the Baroque fresco of the Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power . This vast panegyric allegory became highly influential in guiding decoration for palatial and church ceilings; its influence can be seen in other panoramic scenes such as the frescoed ceilings at Sant'Ignazio (by Pozzo); or those at Villa Pisani at Stra, the throne room of the Royal Palace of Madrid, and the Ca' Rezzonico in Venice (by Tiepolo). Also in the palace is a masterpiece by Andrea Sacchi, a contemporary critic of the Cortona style, Divine Wisdom .
The rooms of the piano nobile have frescoed ceilings by other seventeenth-century artists like Giuseppe Passeri and Andrea Camassei, plus, in the museum collection, precious detached frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio and his lover Maturino da Firenze.
Hidden in the cellars of the rear part of the building, a Mithraeum was found during the construction work of Villa Savorgnan di Brazzà in 1936, dating probably from the second century AD.
Around the mid 18th-century a Rococo-style apartment was decorated on the top floor. Descendants of the Barberini family lived in the 1700-style apartment in the palazzo until 1955. [4]
Today, Palazzo Barberini houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, one of the most important painting collections in Italy. It includes Raphael's portrait La fornarina , Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes , and a Hans Holbein portrait of Henry VIII.
In addition to paintings, the palazzo houses sculptures including Corradini's work Vestal Virgin Tuccia.
The palace also houses the Italian Institute of Numismatics.
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which created the European Court of Human Rights, was signed here on 4 November 1950, a milestone in the protection of human rights.
Francesco Borromini, byname of Francesco Castelli, was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, was a leading figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture.
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.
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 sq ft (110,000 m2).
The Quirinal Palace is a historic building in Rome, Italy, one of the three current official residences of the President of the Italian Republic, together with Villa Rosebery in Naples and the Tenuta di Castelporziano, an estate on the outskirts of Rome, some 25 km from the centre of the city. It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of the seven hills of Rome in an area colloquially called Monte Cavallo. It has served as the residence for thirty popes, four kings of Italy and twelve presidents of the Italian Republic.
Baroque architecture is a highly decorative and theatrical style which appeared in Italy in the early 17th century and gradually spread across Europe. It was originally introduced by the Catholic Church, particularly by the Jesuits, as a means to combat the Reformation and the Protestant church with a new architecture that inspired surprise and awe. It reached its peak in the High Baroque (1625–1675), when it was used in churches and palaces in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Bavaria and Austria. In the Late Baroque period (1675–1750), it reached as far as Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. In about 1730, an even more elaborately decorative variant called Rococo appeared and flourished in Central Europe.
Pietro da Cortona was an Italian Baroque painter and architect. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, he was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important designer of interior decorations.
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.
The House of Barberini is a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in the 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII. Their urban palace, the Palazzo Barberini, completed in 1633 by Bernini, today houses Italy's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica.
Palazzo Pamphilj, also spelled Palazzo Pamphili, is a palace facing onto the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was built between 1644 and 1650.
Andrea Sacchi was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni Bellori.
The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica or National Gallery of Ancient Art is an art museum in Rome, Italy. It is the principal national collection of older paintings in Rome – mostly from before 1800; it does not hold any antiquities. It has two sites: the Palazzo Barberini and the Palazzo Corsini.
Carlo Maderno or Maderna was an Italian architect, born in today's Ticino, Switzerland, who is remembered as one of the fathers of Baroque architecture. His façades of Santa Susanna, St. Peter's Basilica, and Sant'Andrea della Valle were of key importance in the evolution of the Italian Baroque. He often is referred to as the brother of sculptor Stefano Maderno, but this is not universally agreed upon.
The church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, also called San Carlino, is a Roman Catholic church in Rome, Italy. The church was designed by the architect Francesco Borromini and it was his first independent commission. It is an iconic masterpiece of Baroque architecture, built as part of a complex of monastic buildings on the Quirinal Hill for the Spanish Trinitarians, an order dedicated to the freeing of Christian slaves. He received the commission in 1634, under the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, whose palace was across the road. However, this financial backing did not last and subsequently the building project suffered various financial difficulties. It is one of at least three churches in Rome dedicated to San Carlo, including San Carlo ai Catinari and San Carlo al Corso.
The House of Pamphili was one of the papal families deeply entrenched in Catholic Church, Roman and Italian politics of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Minor Basilica of St. Lawrence in Damaso or simply San Lorenzo in Damaso is a parish and titular church in central Rome, Italy that is dedicated to St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr. It is incorporated into the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which enjoys the extraterritoriality of the Holy See.
Francesco Barberini was an Italian Catholic Cardinal. The nephew of Pope Urban VIII, he benefited immensely from the nepotism practiced by his uncle. He was given various roles within the Vatican administration but his personal cultural interests, particularly in literature and the arts, meant that he became a highly significant patron. His secretary was the antiquarian Cassiano dal Pozzo who was also a discerning patron of the arts. Francesco was the elder brother of Cardinal Antonio Barberini and Taddeo Barberini who became Prince of Palestrina.
Antonio Barberini was an Italian Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts and a prominent member of the House of Barberini. As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII and a supporter of France, he played a significant role at a number of the papal conclaves of the 17th century. With his brothers Cardinal Francesco Barberini and Taddeo Barberini he helped to shape politics, religion, art and music of 17th century Italy. He is sometimes referred to as Antonio the Younger or Antonio Barberini iuniore to distinguish him from his uncle Antonio Marcello Barberini.
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 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 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.
Media related to Palazzo Barberini (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons
Preceded by Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga | Landmarks of Rome Palazzo Barberini | Succeeded by Palazzo Borghese |