Built in the early seventeenth century for the Barberini family of Pope Urban VIII, the Palazzo Barberini is one of the great baroque palaces of Rome and now houses the Galleria Nazionale d Arte Antica, the national collection of paintings from the medieval period to the late eighteenth century. The building stands on the Quirinal Hill on the busy Via delle Quattro Fontane. The palace was designed by Carlo Maderno and completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, the three leading architects of the Roman baroque, whose stylistic rivalry is visible in the building grand square stair by Bernini and the contrasting helicoidal stair by Borromini at the other end of the wings. The most spectacular interior is the great salon, where Pietro da Cortona painted between 1632 and 1639 a vast ceiling fresco of the Triumph of Divine Providence, an extravaganza of allegorical figures crowding around the family heraldic bees. The fresco is regarded as one of the founding monuments of the high baroque. The picture collection within the palace is among the most important in Rome. Highlights include Raphael portrait of his lover La Fornarina, Caravaggio Judith Beheading Holofernes, and works by Hans Holbein the Younger, El Greco, Bronzino, Filippo Lippi and Guido Reni, alongside a fine series of Roman portraits and historical paintings. The palace also houses a small museum of porcelain on the upper floor and frequently hosts changing exhibitions in dedicated galleries that complement the permanent collection, drawing in works on loan from museums across Europe and beyond. The gardens at the rear of the palace, partially open to the public, offer a quiet break from the surrounding traffic, and the building is easily combined with a visit to the Palazzo Corsini in Trastevere, the second seat of the same national gallery, on a combined ticket that gives access to both buildings within a few days. The palace courtyard is one of the more theatrical entrances of any Roman palace, with a sweeping driveway that allowed carriages to deposit guests directly at the foot of the great stair. The Galleria Nazionale operates as part of a state museum complex that also includes the Galleria Corsini across the river, allowing curators to rotate exhibitions and complementary works between the two seats. Concerts, lectures and after-hours opening events run periodically through the year, and the palace appears regularly in films set in Rome, its grand interiors recognisable even to viewers who have never set foot in the city.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Via delle Quattro Fontane 13, Rome, Italy

Website: https://www.barberinicorsini.org

Opening Date: 01/01/1633