Take a look to our tour to Palazzo Barberini and to the National Gallery of Ancient Art of Rome!
The tour starts at Palazzo Barberini (in english, Barberini Palace), built for the Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who became pontiff in 1623 with the name of Urban VIII. The construction of Palazzo Barberini began in 1627 under the direction of Carlo Maderno (1556-1629). At the death of Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini took his place in the lead of the work, with the cooperation of Francesco Borromini.
During the Palazzo Barberini tour, we will visit the closed loggia, supported by the deep porch; the latter, spread over two floors with a large frescoed vault painted between 1632 and 1639 by Pietro da Cortona with the Triumph of Divine Providence, a temporal and spiritual glorification of the pope and of the Barberini family; the facade of Palazzo Barberini on Via delle Quattro Fontane, with the two entrances on the right and left of the portico, the south meant for the clergy and the north wing instead occupied by the secular branch of the family, originally by Taddeo, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, and his wife Anna Colonna.
The tour will continue to the garden, designed as an integral part of the building, directly related to the monumental rooms of the main floor. In the seventeenth century much of the garden was architected in the Italian style, with a mix of regular and geometrical box hedges, and completed by secret gardens towards the Sforza wing. In the park were bred deer, ostriches, camels and other exotic animals.
The tour will continue to the National Gallery of Rome, also known as National Gallery of Ancient Art. The Gallery is hosted in the second leg of Palazzo Barberini, as the result of several donations of Prince Corsini, Torlonia and Chigi. Then, other donations made this collection so unique, full of masterpieces, in particular of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The collection includes paintings from the 12th century, such as the image of the Virgin and Christ from Santa Maria in Campo Marzio, and it continues with some crosses of the 13th century, and paintings of the school of Giotto.
The collection’s most consistent part, which will be the very heart of our tour to the National Gallery of Rome, is the group of paintings of the 16th century, including the Fornarina, the famous portrait that Raphael made of his lover, and many works of Andrea del Sarto, Beccafumi, Sodoma, Bronzino, Lotto, Tintoretto, Titian, until arriving at the end of the 1500s with the wonderful Judith beheading Holofernes, by Caravaggio.
The 17th century is represented by works made by Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, Lanfranco, Bernini, Poussin, Pietro da Cortona and Gaulli.
