The tour of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj begins in the heart of Rome, from the Via del Corso, a few hundred meters from Piazza Venezia.
The building that we will visit dates back to Giovanni Fazio Sanctorius (or Santoro), cardinal of Santa Sabina, who between 1505 and 1507 built a notable house between the Via Lata and the Collegio Romano. It developed around a quadrangle.
In 1508 the Cardinal was forced by Pope Julius II della Rovere (1503-1513) to donate the building to his nephew, Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino from 1508, which took up residence in Rome with his wife, Eleonora Gonzaga. As heir to Francesco Maria, the son Guidobaldo II, inherited his public offices, passing them on to his son Francesco Maria II, husband of Lucrezia d’Este. The latter left the palace to his uncle Cardinal Giulio della Rovere.
Pietro Aldobrandini (1571-1621), a cardinal from 1593, bought the complex on the 6th October 1601. The building was valued by his architect, Giacomo della Porta, 40,000 crowns but 5000 less was paid, by virtue of his political status. From 1601 to 1647, the Aldobrandini carry out work there continuously. Until the death of Cardinal Peter (1621), architect of the building was Giovanni Antonio de Pomis, who was succeeded by Giovanni Pietro Moraldi, who completed the work between 1646 and 1648. On the death of Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini the sole heir was Olimpia junior (1638) who in 1647 then married her second husband Camillo Pamphilj, nephew of Pope Innocent X.
The work undertaken by the Aldobrandini continued under the Pamphilj, also affected the rear of the building (1653). The state rooms (open to the public since 1996) are made up of halls together with antechambers and flanked by small drawing rooms.
On the death of Camillo (1666), his wife and children Olimpia ,Benedetto and Giovan Battista continued the work, maintaining Antonio del Grande as architect. Since the death of Innocent X, the Pamphilj preferred to reside in the palace on Via del Corso instead of dwelling in Piazza Navona, as noted by the brief given to Camillo Pamphilj by Alexander VII Chigi (16 November 1657):with the “right to be able to live, for his lifespan, together with his wife and family, outside of the Palazzo in Piazza Navona, without incurring any sunset clause “. The September 10th, 1666 Alexander VII renewed the concession to Giovan Battista Pamphilj, the eldest son of Camillo.
The death without heirs of Girolamo Pamphilj in 1760 (the only son Benedetto died childless in 1750), opened the succession, for which the Borghese and Doria lay claim. The first, in virtue of the marriage of Olimpia Aldobrandini with Paolo Borghese, her first marriage, the second for the wedding, which took place in 1671, between Anna Pamphilj, born of the second marriage of Olympia with Camillo senior, and the Genoese patrician Giovanni Andrea III Doria. Having won the case, the Doria were compelled to come to Rome from the Papal States and reside in the designated dwelling.The first to take up residence in Rome will be Giovanni Andrea IV, but only to his son Andrea IV will be granted, in 1765, to unite to own the name of Pamphilj. There were more architectural changes.
The Pamphilj Gallery, the main object of the guided tour of the Palazzo, is located within the homonymous Palace and is home to a large number of 17thcentury masterpieces (works by Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino, Jan Bruegel, Jusepe Ribera, Velázquez, Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet) and significant Renaissance pieces (Titian, Raphael, Garofalo, Lorenzo Lotto, Pieter Bruegel, Correggio, Parmigianino). The most famous paintings are: La Maddalena Penintente (Caravaggio); Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (Annibale Carraci); Double Portrait (Raphael) only a few works from the vast collection stored inside the Palace.
The paintings are flanked by marble busts (some by Alessandro Algardi and Gian Lorenzo Bernini) and a substantial nucleus of ancient sculptures from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, all part of the itinerary of the visit to the Villa.
