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Colonna Gallery
A true jewel of the Roman Baroque, the Galleria Colonna was commissioned in the mid 1600s by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna. It was inaugurated by Lorenzo Onofrio’s son, Philip II, in 1700. The original project is by the architect Antonio del Grande; it was then integrated by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Paolo Schor and Carlo Fontana in the last decade of the 1600s.
From the very beginning, the Gallery was conceived as a large boardroom, which
was to celebrate the victory of the Christian fleet over the Turks at the Battle
of Lepanto in 1571. The commander of the Papal fleet, Marcantonio II Colonna,
is depicted numerous times throughout the vault of the Great Hall of the Gallery
and in the Room of the Battle Column.
The Gallery includes works by Lorenzo Monaco, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Palma the Elder, Salviati, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Pietro da Cortona, Annibale Carracci (painting of The Beaneater), Guercino, Francesco Albani, Muziano and Guido Reni. Ceiling frescoes by Filippo Gherardi, Giovanni Coli, Sebastiano Ricci, and Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari celebrate the role of Marcantonio II Colonna in the battle of Lepanto (1571).
Princess Isabelle Apartament
Here the Colonna Princess preserves the apartment formerly used by Princess Isabelle exactly as it was when she was still alive.
In the apartment you can find the same warm atmosphere, the same attention to detail and care to keep the family photos where they were originally placed, next to the famous collection of thirty-seven views of Vanvitelli.
This is not the only prized possession in this area, located on the ground floor of the palace which was built upon the foundations of the ancient Temple of Serapis. One of the few traces of the Roman sanctuary is a crocodile in porphyry, which welcomes visitors at the beginning of the sequence of rooms where famous artists left their mark, such as Pinturicchio, Pomarancio and Cavalier Tempesta.
The floor of the apartment in “Venetian” style, is only partially ancient. The original floor is only visible in the hall of the fountain; in all the other rooms, the Princess replaced the traditional covering with shiny oriental marble, perhaps inspired by her Lebanese origins.
Link Esterni
Official Site Colonna Gallery
