Palazzo Barberini is the prototypical Baroque palace, designed by three of the most important architects of the 1600s: Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini.<\/p>\n
In 1623, Maffeo Barberini (Florence 1568 \u2013 Rome 1644) was elected Pope and took the name of Urban VIII. Two years later he acquired a villa on the Quirinal Hill, owned by the Sforza family, for his nephews, who were newly invested with all sorts of honors and responsibilities. He commissioned Carlo Maderno (1556-1629) to transform it into his family\u2019s new residence. Instead of demolishing the villa, the architect incorporated it into a new project: The Sforza wing, the part of the building that faces the current Piazza Barberini, is connected to the other parallel wing by a central hall. The new floor plan of the building is in the innovative shape of an \u201cH\u201d. Maderno created an open-winged structure containing an immense garden, with rare plants, secret courtyards and formal gardens.<\/p>\n
Today one enters the palazzo from via delle Quattro Fontane through the portico fa\u00e7ade, on which is raised a false glass loggia, designed in all likelihood by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who in 1629 succeeded Carlo Maderno in overseeing the construction.<\/p>\n
The pulsing heart of the construction is the majestic entrance hall with frescoes by Pietro da Cortona. One reaches this monumental space by a square-shafted staircase, designed by Bernini, on the one side, and by an extraordinary oval helicoidal staircase on the other, probably designed by Francesco Borromini (1599-1667).
\nStarting in around 1620, various masters worked continuously on the interior decorations, until about the mid 18th-century, when the last direct heir, Cornelia Costanza, had a Rococo-style apartment decorated on the top floor. The descendants of the Barberini family lived in the 1700-style apartment in the palazzo until 1955.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Palazzo Barberini is the prototypical Baroque palace, designed by three of the most important architects of the 1600s: Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-sedi.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4065","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5191,"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4065\/revisions\/5191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barberinicorsini.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}