Another Palazzo, More Churches

Saturday, December 30

Palazzo Colonna, located in Piazza Colonna, in the district of Colonna is adjacent to Piazza Venezia.  Based on the above address information you can imagine that the family is very wealthy.  In fact, most of the family’s wealth comes from commercial and residential real estate holdings.  They own most of the commercial real estate in the district that bears their name.

On November 14, 1417 Oddone Colonna was elected Pope.  It was St Martin’s Day and so the Pope took the name of Martin V.  It is Pope Martin V that began construction of this Palazzo and it was his official residence until his death on February 20, 1431.  The family has resided  there ever since.  The family descends from Italian royalty; many members carry the title of Prince, Duke and Count.

The house covers and entire city block and contains many old master paintings, elaborate furniture, frescoed walls and ceilings and multi-chromatic marbles.  In 1703 a new ‘Grand Gallery’ was built to hold many new works of art that were acquired as part of a dowry.  It has often been compared to Versailles in terms of size and grandour.

(The Grand Gallery in Palazzo Colonna)

Upon entry we were given a book with a description of the paintings in each room.  Every painting was numbered so we could easily reference the works.  None of the sculptures, furniture, frescoes, furnishings or tapestries were included in the book but there was a general description of many of the rooms at the end which mentioned some of the highlights.

The collection included paintings by Rubens, Tintoretto (father and son) and Guido Reni.  There were a large number of paintings by Italian masters from the 1500s that we had never heard of; many were wonderfully executed.

We saw about 10-15 rooms.  For an additional price we could have toured the ‘Princess Isabelle’ apartments as well but we declined.  At noon there was a guided tour in English so we then went about the entire house again and heard some of the back stories.  It was very interesting.

Perhaps one of the most famous paintings in the collection is ‘The Bean Eater’ by Annibale Carracci from 1585.  It foreshadows impressionist artists from the 19th century.

(The Bean Eater by Annibale Carracci)

After lunch we walked over to The Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli⁩.  We had to wait for about an hour for the church to open so we settled into a nearby coffee shop.

The Basilica is famous for two things: it contains a sculpture of Moses done by Michelangelo and it displays the chains that bound St Peter when he was imprisoned.  We drank coffee and ate a pastry.  For me, this was the first cup of coffee I ever drank.  It was a Cappuccino.

(My first cup of coffee ever.  It was a Cappuccino.  Notice the Moses poster in the background.)

We had been to this church before during our last visit.  I didn’t remember it being so nicely decorated.  Of course there was a huge crowd around the Moses sculpture.  This sculpture of Moses was completed in 1515 and was meant to be part of an enormous funeral monument for Pope Julius II, which was designed to contain 47 individual statues.  The final tomb only contains a dozen or so sculptures and only the centerpiece, Moses, was done by Michelangelo.

A small set of descending steps in front of the main alter house a display containing St Peter’s chains.  St Peter was imprisoned in chains in Jerusalem before being led out of jail by an angel.  He was also imprisoned in chains in Rome’s Mamertine Prison.  Legend has it that when Pope Leo I held these two sets of chains next to one another they miraculously fused together.

(St Peter’s Chains)

Distance walked: 7.4 miles

Total churches visited so far: 74 and one Synagogue