One of the most remarkable buildings of Venice, the Doge’s Palace is situated in the Piazzetta between San Marco and the Grand Canal.

Doge’s Palace History

The Doge’s Palace was rebuilt and remodeled repeatedly during its history, as is reflected in its mixture of Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance features. The present building, constructed largely in the 14th and 15th centuries, replaced a 9th-century fortified castle on the same site.

The new structure was to serve both as the official residence of the doge and as the seat of government, a dual purpose that influenced every aspect of the building, including the style and iconography of its decoration.

In a city the very existence of which depended on the balance of commercial and diplomatic ties with both the Near East and Western Europe, the palace was designed to serve both practical and diplomatic purposes, by flattering and overwhelming its visitors and at the same time instructing them on the unique qualities of the city they were visiting.

The unknown architects who began the reconstruction of the building designed it as a replica of a Byzantine palace, in Venice in order to impress visitors from Constantinople.

The Byzantine source of the design partly explains the strangely top-heavy structure, with a loggia and delicately traceried gallery appearing to support the solid walls of the upper stories.

The main façade of the Doge’s Palace facing the Grand Canal (begun in1340) has an arcade composed of 36 short, thick columns, above which 71 columns form a gallery.

The shapes of the arcade and gallery arches, as well as the tracery that originally decorated the windows, show the architects’ attempt to combine Gothic elements with Eastern design.

The wall above, covered with a diaper pattern of white Istrian stone and rose-colored Verona marble, adds to the colorful exoticism of the building, as does the delicate crenellation that crowns this façade.

Although constructed as late as the 15th century, the adjoining wing facing the Piazzetta was designed in a similar style, while the façade facing the Rio di Palazzo, begun in 1484 by Antonio Rizzo and completed around 1510 by Pietro Lombardo, is an odd, piecemeal structure, marked by an irregular fenestration and an uneven cornice. The diamond-patterned stonework at basement level is unusual in Venice and the idea was probably imported from the mainland, reflecting the city’s increasing involvement with the rest of Italy at that time.

The sculptural decoration of the two principal façades is medieval in its encyclopedic character. Although some of the capitals are simply ornamental, most of them as well as the larger sculptures in this area are allegorical, designed to impress upon the city leaders their obligation to justice and virtue.

The capital of the corner column by the Porta della Carta is decorated with an allegorical figure of Justice, while a larger 15th-century sculpture of the Judgement of Solomon appears above. On the other two corners, 14th-century sculptures depicting the Drunkenness of Noah and Adam and Eve serve as reminders of human weakness.

The column capitals (many of which have been replaced or are badly worn) were carved with such personifications of Virtue and Justice as Moses, Solon, Aristotle, and Numa Pompilius, and images of the Planets and the Months, according to an iconographic program derived from Gothic cathedrals.

The Porta della Carta, situated between the palace and S Marco, forms the main entrance to the courtyard and palace. It was begun by Giovanni Buon and his son Bartolomeo Buon in 1438, and its mixture of Gothic and proto-Renaissance elements provides the most important surviving example of the Venetian style of that time.

Its present name refers to the government’s practice of posting proclamations on the doorway, though it was originally referred to as the ‘Golden Doorway’ on account of its extensive gilding. Despite being stripped of its gold and polychromy the doorway remains rich in detail and iconography.

Extending the iconography of the façade sculpture, a figure of Justice crowns the doorway, while St Mark, the patron saint of Venice, appears in a roundel below.

In the canopied niches placed against the side pillars are statues of Virtues: Prudence, Charity, Temperance, and Fortitude. Immediately above the door, a relief showing Doge Francesco Foscari Kneeling before the Lion of St Mark reproduces an earlier sculpture that was destroyed during the revolutionary turmoil of 1797. It symbolizes the divine approval of the Republic, a theme that was often represented inside the palace.

The Porta della Carta leads through a vaulted corridor known as the Porticato Foscari to the Arco Foscari, which was built in the 15th century and embellished by later doges. The structure serves both as an impressive triumphal arch leading to the palace courtyard and as a transept façade for S Marco. Many of its important architectural elements, such as the two superimposed orders and the columns, pinnacles, and figure sculpture above, are derived from the west façade of S Marco.

Sculptures by Rizzo of Adam and Eve (replaced by copies) echo the religious tone of the basilica. Thus Arco Foscari reveals two tendencies prominent in 15th-century Venetian civic architecture: the desire to establish richly decorated focal points along major visual and ceremonial axes, and the willingness to combine elements from different styles to achieve the greatest possible richness of color and texture.

The Doge’s Palace courtyard was built in several stages from the late 15th century to the mid-16th. Its principal architect was Rizzo, who began to rebuild the courtyard after it was destroyed by fire in 1483, and who continued to work on it until 1498, when he fled the city after being found to have embezzled money from the palace workshop treasury.

He was succeeded by Pietro Lombardo, who generally followed Rizzo’s plan. Rizzo’s structure, which is seen most clearly in the façade facing the Grand Canal, displays the Venetian Gothic interest in rich surface elaboration marked by irregular rhythms (caused in part by the need to work around the existing interior spaces and fenestration) and rich textural effects.

However, it also shows Classical borrowings in many of its decorative elements such as garlands, arms, armor, and inlaid roundels. The final result is a pleasing mixture of syncopated rhythms and richly varied textures, although the effect of his work has been somewhat obscured by sculpture added in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Doge’s Palace courtyard served as a large gathering place for the citizens and provided an elegant setting for the impressive Scala dei Giganti, built by Rizzo after the earlier staircase was destroyed in the fire of 1483.

The structure fulfilled several functions, serving as the grand entrance to the palace, the site of major ceremonies such as the coronation of the doge, and as the major sculptural focus of the palace. Its role, therefore, was not only practical but also symbolic, as is apparent from the design.

Rizzo deliberately emphasized the staircase by giving it a different scale and decoration in relation to the surrounding walls. The massive staircase leads into the palace through three arches of the first-floor arcade, recalling a Roman triumphal arch. A small prison used to house traitors and enemies of the state was situated below the stairs so that the doge could ceremonially tread on them as he entered and exited the palace.

Colossal statues of Mars and Neptune, sculpted by Jacopo Sansovino and his pupils in the 16th century, crown the staircase on either side and proclaim the military and naval power of Venice.

The staircase and the Arco Foscari separate the main courtyard from the Cortile dei Senatori, a small area built c. 1520 in which members of the Senate gathered during state ceremonies. Antonio Scarpagnino, the presumed architect of at least part of the internal façade, harmonized it with the main courtyard by repeating many of the forms found there. This audience area, together with the staircase and the rest of the courtyard, reflects the sense of theatre that characterized the Doge’s Palace, where the city’s major events were acted out.

Much of the Doge’s Palace was destroyed by fire in 1574 and 1577, and many influential citizens of Venice, including Palladio, proposed rebuilding it in a grandiose Renaissance style. Palladio found the building particularly hideous: ‘The fabric was in a barbarous style because, to say nothing of the ugliness of the orders, it was very weak, having the solid part above the void, and the thick and heavy part above the narrow.’ Jacopo Sansovino was the only leading Venetian architect to support the city leaders’ decision to rebuild the palace in its original form.

Doge’s Palace Painting and Decoration

The decorative program of the interior of the Doge’s Palace was designed to represent the most illustrious moments in the history of the Venetian Republic and to impress its visitors with the splendor of the city. Though originally decorated in the 14th, 15th, and early 16th centuries by leading artists from both the city and the mainland, including Guariento, Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello, Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, and Titian, most of the existing decoration postdates the fire of 1577, which gutted the palace destroying most of the earlier masterpieces.

The Scala dei Giganti leads into a loggia, which in turn opens onto the Scala d’Oro that leads to the main halls of the palace. The latter staircase was completed in the mid-16th century and received its name from the rich gold stucco decoration on its vaulted ceiling. The decorative scheme was designed by Alessandro Vittoria and is a simplified version of the decoration planned by Jacopo Sansovino for the bronze door of the sacristy of S Marco. The ceiling contains a profusion of decorative motifs—foliage, crowns, busts of heroes, philosophers, orators, and personifications of history, politics, religion, law, and science—intended to overwhelm the visitor with a host of references to Venetian glories rather than to present a unified allegorical program.

The staircase leads to a vestibule (the Atrio Quadrato) with a ceiling painting (around 1654–1655) by Jacopo Tintoretto showing Doge Girolamo Priuli (1559–1567) receiving the sword and balance, emblems of Venice, from Justice, while the Virgin and Priuli’s patron saint, Jerome, pray for the prosperity of his reign. The theme of the painting echoes the emphasis on Justice seen in the palace’s exterior decoration, while the heavenly setting of the scenes implies divine approval of the Venetian Republic. Beyond the vestibule is a succession of staterooms. The Sala delle Quattro Porte, which served first as the seat of the College and then as a vestibule of honor, was partially designed by Palladio.

The decoration of the room, which includes a statue by Vittoria of Vigilance, illustrates the power and virtues of the Venetian Republic. The stuccoed ceiling was painted by Jacopo Tintoretto with an allegory of the Triumph of Venice (1577) surrounded by smaller compartments in which are depicted the regions and cities under Venetian control. On one wall is a canvas by Titian and his nephew Marco Vecellio showing Doge Antonio Grimani Adoring Faith, while Andrea Vicentino’s Entrance of Henry III into Venice in 1574 appears on another. An allegorical scene of Neptune Offering Venice the Gifts of the Sea (1745–1750) was added by Giambattista Tiepolo.

The Sala dell’Anticollegio was given a particularly rich decoration in order to impress the foreign ambassadors who would wait here before an audience with the doge. The ceiling contains one of Veronese’s finest works, Venice Distributing Honours and Rewards, painted in 1586–7. Four works painted by Tintoretto in 1577–1578 in the vestibule were moved into this room in 1714: Bacchus, Ariadne and Venus, the Three Graces and Mercury, the Forge of Vulcan and Minerva Rejecting Mars. A fireplace by Vincenzo Scamozzi and Veronese’s lavish Rape of Europa (1580) completed the decoration of this room.

Just beyond is the Sala del Collegio, the main audience hall, where the doge, six councilors, three chiefs of the Criminal Courts, the appointed sages of the Republic, and the three heads of the Council of Ten sat on state occasions.

The ceiling is decorated with a series of paintings commissioned from Veronese in 1574 illustrating the power and virtues of Venice, including the large Venice Enthroned with Justice and Peace and a painting of Mars and Neptune symbolizing the military and naval power of the city. Smaller paintings of the Virtues represented as richly dressed female figures, complete the painted decoration of the ceiling. On the walls below are illustrations by Veronese and Tintoretto of four 16th-century doges celebrating military victories or giving thanks to religious figures for their successes or, in one case, for the deliverance of the city from the plague.

The Sala del Senato is similarly decorated with paintings illustrating the divine protection of Venice and the development of her culture. The central compartment of the ceiling shows the Triumph of Venice as Queen of the Sea, designed by Tintoretto and executed by his pupils. Another painting by Tintoretto’s school portrays Doge Loredan praying to the Virgin for help in defeating the Turks and stopping the plague. A canvas over the door by Palma Giovane shows Doge Pasquale Cicogna asking Christ to save the city from famine and pestilence, while yet another shows Venice’s victorious battle against the League of Cambrai.

The Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci was the site of the meetings of the ten magistrates appointed to protect the city and its government from political enemies. It contained three paintings by Veronese dated 1553–4: Jupiter Expelling the Vices (Paris, Louvre; replaced in situ by 17th-century copy), an allegory of the justice meted out by the Council; Juno Bestowing Gifts on Venice, suggesting the bounty the city enjoyed thanks to her conquest of vice; and Youth and Age, also known as Proserpina and Pluto, an allegorical reference to the old and new domains of the Republic.

Other government chambers were also lavishly decorated in the 15th and 16th centuries, as were the doge’s private rooms. The most monumental decoration was reserved, however, for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, a vast room that could hold as many as 3000 people. This was the site of the legislative meetings of the lower house of the Venetian government, which numbered up to 1600 members; elections and banquets were also held here. After most of the 14th- and 15th-century masterpieces were destroyed in the fire of 1577, Veronese and Tintoretto were called in to redecorate the room with historical and mythological scenes illustrating the wars, victories, and growth of Venice. On the ceiling are paintings showing Venice, Queen of the Sea Presenting the Doge with an Olive Branch, probably by Tintoretto and his pupils, and a Triumph of Venice (1579–1582) that was painted by Veronese.

The walls are decorated with scenes of the 12th-century conflict between Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III, in which Venice achieved prestige as a diplomatic negotiator, as well as events of the Fourth Crusade (1204). Other battle scenes complete the wall decoration. Above is a frieze by Domenico Tintoretto depicting the first 76 doges of Venice. Only Marino Falier, who was executed for treason, is omitted. In his place is a black curtain, a reminder that even the most powerful man in Venice was subject to justice. All of these decorations are overpowered by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto’s enormous (if not entirely compositionally satisfying) image of Paradise (1588–1590), which gained fame as the largest painting on canvas (7.62×21.34 m) in the world. It filled the wall behind the thrones of the doge and the heads of government and thus acted as a final, overwhelming reminder of the divinely privileged position the Venetians gave themselves.

Doge’s Palace Location

Pallazzo Ducale Address: Sestiere San Marco, 1, 30124 Venezia, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Doge’s Palace Map

The post Doge’s Palace appeared first on Every Castle.

Villa Medici History

Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano is an Italian villa situated about 20 km northwest of Florence, near Prato.

It is one of the few 15th-century villas surrounding Florence to survive the Spanish siege of 1529, it was designed for Lorenzo di Medici by Giuliano da Sangallo and begun in 1485.

Only the front third of the villa was completed by 1494 when the Medici were expelled from Florence, and the large central salon and a rear third of the villa were completed to Sangallo’s design in 1515–19 by the Medici Pope Leo X.

Monumental in scale, the Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano is raised on a balustraded podium with a groin-vaulted arcade. Above the podium, the piano nobile is reached by two semicircular staircases built in the 17th century to replace the original horse ramps that ran at angles to the entrance.

The façade is articulated by a pedimented temple front set on four widely spaced Ionic columns in antis. This Classical feature, here applied to the Renaissance villa for the first time, later became the hallmark of Palladio’s villas, though in a more architecturally integrated form.

Villa Medici’s plan is strictly symmetrical (also a feature of Palladio’s villas), with the barrel-vaulted salone at its center having curved terracotta coffering, cast using a technique adapted from ancient Roman practice and, according to Vasari, first tried out in Sangallo’s own house in Florence.

The decoration of the central salone glorifying the Medici family is one of the most important fresco cycles of 16th-century Florentine art.

Begun in 1520 by Andrea del Sarto (Tribute to Caesar), Franciabigio (Triumph of Cicero), and Jacopo da Pontormo (Vertumnus and Pomona), following a program by Paolo Giovio, work stopped with Leo X’s death in 1521. In 1531 Pope Clement VII commissioned Pontormo to complete the frescoes, but beyond drawings little was done.

Following a revised program by Vincenzo Borghini, the decoration was completed for Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici from 1578–82 by Alessandro Allori.

Villa Medici Location

Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano: Piazza dei Medici, 14, 59016 Poggio a Caiano Prato, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Villa Medici Map

The post Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano appeared first on Every Castle.

The Uffizi Palace – Palazzo degli Uffizi Houses – the greatest collection of Florentine art and the State archives of Tuscany.

Cosimo I de Medici in 1559 commissioned the court architect, Giorgio Vasari, to design the palace, intending that it should house the public offices of the State, hence the name Uffizi, meaning offices.

Uffizi Palace History

By 1564 the part adjoining the Palazzo Vecchio was complete, and in 1565 Cosimo instructed Vasari to build the private passageway known as the Corridoio Vasariano linking the Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi to the new Medici residence, the Palazzo Pitti on the far side of the River Arno.

This was completed in a record five months. Vasari employed considerable engineering skills in overcoming the difficulties of building on the sandy, unstable ground close to the river. He used iron to reinforce the building, which allowed him to insert large and frequent apertures, and he incorporated remains of the 11th-century Romanesque church of S Piero Scheraggio.

When Vasari died in 1574, the supervision of the work passed to Bernardo Buontalenti and Alfonso di Santi Parigi. The building was completed soon after 1580. Francesco I de Medici had the second story of the palace remodeled to display the works of art belonging to the Medici family.

Buontalenti completed the design of the Galleria and designed the Tribuna, the octagonal domed hall where the works of greatest value were kept. He also built the unusual side entrance known as the Porta delle Suppliche and the theatre in the eastern part of the palace, where the Gabinetto dei Disegni is housed today.

The Uffizi occupies a U-shaped site between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Lungarno. Two long, narrow wings stand on either side of a narrow piazza and are linked by a short façade on the riverfront, which is opened in a Venetian window on the ground floor.

The two wings are composed of long arcades supporting three upper stories, and the façade is divided into regular units of three bays. Vasari’s design elegantly frames and enhances the view both to the Palazzo Vecchio and to the river.

The palace is built in Fossato stone, similar to the pietra serena that was used for many Florentine buildings. The Uffizi was the largest building project in Florence of its period and the first Florentine building to be conceived as a piece of urban design.

Modeled on Michelangelo’s Biblioteca Laurenziana at San Lorenzo, it was intended as a faithful return to the principles of ancient architecture. It was also the first building designed as a museum, and its series of long, well-lit, interconnecting galleries served as a prototype for many subsequent museums and galleries.

Palazzo degli Uffizi Location

Uffizi Palace Address: Piazzale degli Uffizi, 6, 50122 Firenze, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Palazzo degli Uffizi Map

The post Uffizi Palace appeared first on Every Castle.

Originally known as the Palazzo dei Priori and later as the Palazzo della Signoria and Palazzo Ducale, the 13th-century Palazzo Vecchio was built to house the Priori, the leaders of the guilds, following the establishment of the popular government in 1283.

The site was probably chosen because of its proximity to their previous meeting place, the church of S Piero.

Palazzo Vecchio History

The new palace was an architectural statement of the new political order that followed the resolution of the fierce fighting between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in the city.

Construction involved the demolition of a number of buildings formerly belonging to such families of the defeated Ghibelline faction as the Uberti and the Foraboschi, and the subsequent trapezoidal plan of the palace and its skewed façade largely resulted from the piecemeal acquisition of the building site.

As the foundations were being laid in 1299, further houses in the vicinity were acquired and demolished in order to create a great piazza to the north that would balance the open space on the west resulting from the leveling of the Uberti property.

This occasional balancing of spaces continued throughout the first half of the 14th century, and as late as 1349 the decision was taken to demolish the church of S Romolo to the west of the palace in order to improve the square.

The bell tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, which was considerably higher than the original Foraboschi tower on the same site, was a powerful symbol of the new government; it tolled warnings in times of unrest or danger and called citizens together to discuss matters of communal interest.

The palace was originally free-standing and extended only five bays along its northern flank, which was then the main front. It has been traditionally argued, although there is no precise documentation, that it was designed in the main by Arnolfo di Cambio.

Construction was rapid, and the Priori was already installed in 1302, but such haste possibly contributed to later structural problems. During the first half of the 14th century, further property to the east was acquired so that the fabric could be expanded along the north front.

These later developments are clearly visible in the variety of levels and openings on the north side, although some effort was made to achieve consistency through the use of string courses and a common window line.

The original walls were divided by narrow cornices into three horizontal sections of diminishing height. The robust, rusticated ashlar walls, constructed of blocks of stone quarried from the local Boboli hillside, were pierced by elegant Gothic windows with cusped double openings.

The Palazzo Vecchio set the pattern for Central Italian civic architecture during the 14th century. Its battlemented upper profile, with deeply recessed supporting brackets decorated with the coats of arms of the Florentine comune, was typical of the fortification of secular buildings from the time of the free comuni.

Warring factions within the early comuni often made it necessary for members of government to install themselves behind battlements and sturdy walls, with internal council chambers safely raised above the level of surrounding streets and squares. The Loggia dei Lanzi opposite the palace, erected during the late 14th century and originally known as the Loggia dei Priori or Loggia della Signoria, was used for public government ceremonies.

Government officials often congregated on the raised platform (aringhiera) in front of the Palazzo Vecchio to hear public proclamations declaimed from the loggia. This structure, therefore, served as an open-air adjunct to the main government building.

The palace subsequently underwent many changes, both internally and externally. In the 15th century, when it was known as the Palazzo della Signoria, Michelozzo was charged with shoring up the internal courtyard and fortifying the tower, both of which were in danger of imminent collapse; the present courtyard is very different from the 13th-century original, where thick columns with bases and capitals in pietra serena lined each side.

Michelozzo also carried out extensive alterations to many of the external windows and a number of the internal rooms. Some parts nevertheless remain in their earlier form, notably the ground-floor Sala d’Arme, with groin vaults supported by octagonal pilasters. In 1495, after the expulsion of the Medici, an enormous hall was built by Cronaca for meetings of the new legislative body (Consiglio Maggiore) until its dissolution in 1530.

Between 1540 and 1550 the palace was used as the official residence of Cosimo I de’ Medici and was called the Palazzo Ducale. The building became known as the Palazzo Vecchio only after Cosimo transferred his principal place of residence to the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the River Arno in 1550. Thereafter the Palazzo Vecchio was used only for government business.

A particularly grandiose and ornate internal reconstruction was carried out under the direction of Vasari in 1555–1572.

Vasari decorated the courtyard in which Michelozzo had worked, designed and built the nearby great staircase rising to the Salone del Cinquecento, and planned an elaborate series of decorative schemes for the palace. The internal rooms reflect the individual tastes of various members of the Medici family: for example the studio of Cosimo’s son Francesco I celebrates his interest in alchemy and the natural sciences.

Some of the schemes celebrate the triumphs of war and peace, the most splendid being in the Salone del Cinquecento, for which Vasari and his many collaborators painted 39 panels celebrating the power and glory of the Medici.

Thus, although it was conceived as a monument to a democratic government, the Palazzo Vecchio now bears witness to the power of Florence’s best-known rulers, the Medici.

Palazzo Vecchio Location

Palazzo Vecchio Address: Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Palazzo Vecchio Map

The post Palazzo Vecchio appeared first on Every Castle.

One of the largest palaces in Florence, the Pitti Palace (Palazzo Pitti) is laid out on the slopes of Boboli Hill, south of the Arno. It now houses the Galleria Palatina, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, the Museo degli Argenti, and other collections.

Pitti Palace History

The palace was commissioned by Luca Pitti, who had owned the site from as early as 1418. It was probably begun in 1457 and was certainly well advanced by 1469 when the Pitti family was already installed. By the latter date, however, Luca Pitti had fallen from official favor, and the building work seems to have been interrupted; it was certainly halted by Pitti’s death in 1472.

It has been suggested that Brunelleschi produced the original design, consisting of seven bays with three large ground-floor openings and heavy rustication on each of its three levels, which appears on the predella of an altarpiece (Florence, Uffizi) from Santo Spirito by Alessandro Allori.

The Palazzo Pitti has traditionally been linked with the great new palace built for the Medici family in Via Larga (now Via Cavour) between 1444 and 1460. Brunelleschi’s plan for the latter was rejected in favor of the less grandiose project put forward by Michelozzo, but he may have subsequently offered similar designs to Luca Pitti.

The architect responsible for the actual construction of the Palazzo Pitti is unknown, although some attempts have been made to identify him with Luca Fancelli.

In 1550 the palace was bought from the Pitti family by Eleonora de Medici, wife of Cosimo I, and it became the residence of the main branch of the Medici family; it was connected with the Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi by the Corridoio Vasariano in 1565.

In 1560 Bartolomeo Ammanati was given instructions to enlarge the building and construct a courtyard. He broke away from the contained classicism of the earlier building and, under the Mannerist influence of such contemporaries as Michelangelo and Jacopo Vignola, introduced curiously shaped windows, broken arches, and a variety of rustication.

At the same time, the surrounding land was developed to form one of the first great Italian gardens. The garden façade of the palace was arranged as an open loggia on the first floor, giving a magnificent view over the grounds.

The palace was substantially altered under later members of the Medici family: from 1618 to 1635 the façade was doubled in length by the Parigi family; and during the second half of the 18th century, Ignazio Pellegrini added a great northern wing and Gasparo Maria Paoletti created the Meridiana wing. The palace was finally completed in the 19th century with the construction of the southern wing, the great internal staircase, and the completion of the Meridiana wing.

Pitti Palace Decoration
The decoration of the Pitti palace began under Ferdinand I de’ Medici during the last years of the 16th century. The first part to be decorated was the right wing, which had been constructed by Ammanati for Cosimo I.

At the beginning of the 17th century, much work took place under Bernardino Poccetti, who painted the impressive Battle of Bona and Prevesa in the Sala di Bona, as well as a series of grotesques inspired by the Antique in the small courtyard.

A number of other artists, including Lodovico Cigoli, Cristofano Allori, Giovanni da San Giovanni, and Baldassare Franceschini, took part in and continued the massive scheme of decoration begun by Poccetti much of it glorifying the Medici.

Most of the existing interior decoration was carried out during the 17th and 18th centuries in the late Mannerist and Baroque styles. Artists from many parts of Italy came to Florence in the mid-17th century. Many of the large-scale wall and ceiling decorations radically extended the apparent size of the courtrooms through architectural and spatial illusionism.

Landscape views were later produced, mainly for the private rooms, where the interior decoration was continued under Ignazio Pellegrini, Jacopo Chiavistelli, and Sebastiano Ricci, among others.

Many of the smaller rooms were lined with silk tapestries and painted with elaborate architectural extensions and floating figures that anticipate the Rococo style of Giambattista Tiepolo. Some areas were also articulated by fine stucco moldings, creating such dazzling small spaces as the oval Gabinetto and the Sala da Lavoro, or queen’s music room.

In the later 18th century and early 19th, further projects took place; the Sala Bianca was decorated by Gasparo Maria Paoletti, and some rooms, such as the Sala d’Ercole, were decorated in the Neo-classical style during the early 19th century.

Pitti Palace – Boboli Gardens

The gardens of the Palazzo Pitti were designed on several levels with wild and cultivated vegetation, pools, and fountains. They comprise two principal sections, the original one commissioned by Cosimo I de Medici. In 1550 Niccolò Tribolo designed the waterworks and the basic lines of the central axis, which extends behind the Palazzo Pitti up to the Forte di Belvedere.

After 1560 Bartolomeo Ammanati linked the Pitti palace and the garden by a courtyard and ramp. Bernardo Buontalenti created the fanciful tripartite great grotto (Grotto Grande); this contains frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti, a figure of Venus by Giambologna and Helen and Paris sculpted by Vincenzo de Rossi.

On the exterior of the grotto is a group of Adam and Eve by Baccio Bandinelli, whose statue of God the Father, intended for the high altar of Florence Cathedral, was transformed into a figure of Jupiter and set in an adjacent rose garden. The Grotticina di Madama contains marble goats by Giovanni Fancelli.

Above the palace courtyard is the large Artichoke Fountain by Francesco Susini. This is set on the main axis of the palace and faces the stone amphitheater, which was built against the natural hollow of the rising hillside and was the site of many court festivities.

Above the amphitheater is the Neptune Fountain by Stoldo di Gino Lorenzi, and to the left is the Rococo Kaffehaus by Zanobi del Rosso. By the walls of the Forte di Belvedere are a small casino and the Giardino del Cavaliere, a walled garden enclosing the Monkey Fountain by Pietro Tacca.

The second section of the garden, designed by Giulio Parigi and his son Alfonso, stretches down a slope to the Porta Romana gate. A magnificent cypress avenue lined with Classical statues leads to the Isolotto, a circular island surrounded by a moat, on which stands a replica of Giambologna’s Neptune (originally now Florence, Bargello) in the center of the Ocean Fountain (1567–76).

This section of the garden contains a rich collection of 18th-century genre statues. The areas flanking the avenue were formerly subdivided with mazes, flowerbeds, and thickets for hunting birds.

When the barco (park) of Francesco I de’ Medici at Pratolino was redesigned, many of the statues were sent to the Boboli Gardens.

Tribolo’s original design can be studied in one of 14 lunettes depicting the Medici villas in and around Florence by Giusto Utens.

Despite minor planting changes and the reorganization of statues, the gardens remain largely intact, thus presenting a rare, extant example of a late Renaissance garden on this scale.

Pitti Palace Location

Palazzo Pitti Address: Piazza Pitti, 1, 50125 Firenze, Italy

Pitti Palace Map

The post Palazzo Pitti appeared first on Every Castle.

Buonconsiglio Castle (Castello del Buonconsiglio) is a vast monumental complex built between the north and east gates of the ancient city walls (around 1200–1220) of Trent, the capital of Trentino province in Italy.

It has three main points: the Castelvecchio, the Magno Palazzo, and the Giunta Albertina.

Castello del Buonconsiglio History

The oldest part, Castelvecchio, was built between 1239 and 1255 around the strong donjon, the Torre d’Augusto, by the Imperial Podestà of Trent, Sodegerio da Tito, who took up office in 1238.

Its function was predominantly military. In 1277 it passed to the Church and became the residence of the prince–bishop of Trent. In subsequent centuries a series of modifications and extensions have brought the castle to its present form.

Of fundamental importance were the works completed in 1475 by Giovanni Hinderbach with the aid of Venetian craftsmen, who built the Renaissance Gothic internal court with tiered open galleries and small loggia on the third floor.

At that time the walls of the upper loggia were frescoed with portraits of the bishops of Trent from the city’s origin to the year 1000; the series was completed in the adjoining room with portraits of the bishops since the millennium.

The frescoed festoons (1476) on the outside of the galleries were the work of Bartolomeo Sacchetto of Verona. The appearance of the castle in the 15th century is known from a watercolor by Albrecht Dürer.

Between 1528 and 1536 the Castel Nuovo was built beside the medieval structure; it was called the Magno Palazzo by Pietro Andrea Mattioli. This new residence was built according to the dictates of Renaissance architecture, enriched by extensive decorations based on humanist themes, following the example of other Italian courts.

Documents provide the names of a few architects, including Lodovico Zaffran and Alessio Longhi, as well as those of craftsmen who took part in the building of the palace. It became a great Renaissance princely residence.

The painters Gerolamo Romanino, Dosso Dossi, Battista Dossi, Marcello Fogolino, Matteo Fogolino, and Bartholomäus Dill Riemenschneider worked on the decorations from 1531, created some of their masterpieces there. Sculptors included Vincenzo Grandi, Alessio Longhi, and Zaccaria Zacchi.

Prince–Bishop Francesco Alberti Poja added the Giunta Albertiana to the Buonconsiglio castle, linking the two preceding structures. Externally it resembles the Magno Palazzo, while the interior is decorated in a splendid Baroque style.

In the two first-floor salons, frescoed by Giuseppe Alberti, exuberant stucco decoration surrounds historical and allegorical paintings celebrating the victory over the Turks in 1683, while the second floor has richly carved and gilded wooden ceilings.

The Torre Aquila is an ancient watch tower overlooking the east gate of the city. Prince–Bishop Georg von Liechtenstein (1390–1416) turned it into an elegant private residence, accessible from the castle via the path running along the city walls.

Around 1400 George had the salon on the middle floor of the tower frescoed with the famous Late Gothic Twelve Months cycle. There are other frescoes on secular themes in the Torre del Falco, with scenes of hunting and outdoor life (1530–1532) that are attributable to Bartholomäus Dill Riemenschneider.

With the Napoleonic Wars, the principality was suppressed, and Buonconsiglio Castle entered a period of decline. It was occupied in turn by the Austrians, the French, and the Bavarians, then converted into a barracks for the Austrians. The Trent Irredentists Cesare Battisti, Damiano Chiesa and Fabio Filzi died there.

Visit Castello del Buonconsiglio

The Castello del Buonconsiglio later became the seat of the Museo Nazionale and the Museo Trentino del Risorgimento e della Lotta per la Libertà. In 1973 it came under the control of the autonomous province of Trento, and in 1975 it became the Museo Provinciale d’Arte. At the same time, important restoration work began, together with the reorganization of the collections.

The Buonconsiglio Museum has been very active in conservation, cataloging, and restoration, as well as in producing exhibitions and publications.

Buonconsiglio Castle Location

Castello del Buonconsiglio Address: Via Bernardo Clesio, 5, 38122 Trento, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Buonconsiglio Castle Map

The post Buonconsiglio Castle appeared first on Every Castle.

Castello Ursino History

The Ursino Castle was built on the initiative of Emperor Frederick II as part of his plan for fortifying the Sicilian coast.

In 1669 an eruption of Mount Etna changed the topography of the surrounding area, so it is difficult to establish the castle’s original setting with precision.

Clearly, however, it stood on a promontory about 16 meters high, dominating the city and the port, and was protected by outworks on the side facing inland and by the cliff over the sea.

Castello Ursino has a square plan with cylindrical corner towers and four semi-cylindrical turrets at the center of each side, of which only two survived. The substructures are powerful, consisting of foundations 12 m deep and a sloping escarpment 3 m high.

The total height of the building is 24 m. Each of the ranges surrounding the square inner court has a middle room of three rib-vaulted bays flanked by square end rooms that lead into the corner towers. These are octagonal on the interior; traces of the original water system remain in the thickness of the walls.

Only the north side is fully intact, containing the entrance with a pointed arch between the middle tower and the northeast one. The walls are faced with volcanic ashlar blocks, but the window mounts are limestone.

The other sides have been greatly altered, only the main walls surviving from Frederick’s time. On the west side the two large, double-embrasured windows are original; on the south is an arch that is traditionally thought to be the remains of the chapel of S Giorgio and a 16th-century portal.

Access to the upper floor of theUrsino Castle is by spiral stairways in the thickness of the walls of the middle turrets. All that survives from Frederick’s time are the rooms on the north side, corresponding to those below. The towers have octopartite rib vaults, springing from pyramidal corbels or from the capitals of the small corner columns.

The sober decorative elements are mainly limited to the crocket capitals, which can be compared with contemporary Sicilian work in the Castel Maniace, Syracuse. The symmetry of the plan is reminiscent of Frederick II’s Castel del Monte in Apulia, the only one of his mainland castles whose plan was not conditioned by the land but rather based on an organic geometrical scheme.

Castello Ursino has a unique character; it is a Mediterranean synthesis of Frederick II’s Sicilian fortresses.

Castello Ursino Visitor info

Castello Ursino is situated in Catania, Sicily. The building houses a gallery of local art as well as the Catania Civic Museum, which is well worth visiting.

Ursino Castle Location

Castello Ursino Address: Piazza Federico II di Svevia, 1, 95121 Catania, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Ursino Castle Map

The post Castello Ursino appeared first on Every Castle.

History of Villa Farnese

Villa Farnese is an Italian estate near Viterbo, around 55 km northwest of Rome. It stands on a hilltop site overlooking the medieval village of Caprarola and was built for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, by Jacopo Vignola and his successors from 1557 to 1583.

The interior contains a series of frescoes that constitute one of the most important decorative cycles of the later 16th century.

The lower gardens were built between 1557 and 1583 to Vignola’s designs, while the upper garden and casino were built around 1584 to 1586 to designs by Giacomo del Duca.

Villa Farnese – Architecture and decoration

The Villa Farnese was constructed on the foundations of a fortress begun in 1521 for Pope Paul III by Antonio da Sangallo and Baldassare Peruzzi. This accounts for its unusual pentagonal plan with arrowhead bastions, although the circular courtyard at the center of the structure was Vignola’s own design.

Vignola also designed the axial, terraced approach to the villa, with a straight road ascending from the village to an oval forecourt with rusticated loggia facing a fish pond. The forecourt is embraced by two symmetrical semicircular horse ramps rising to a second, larger, trapezoidal court, with staircases leading up to the villa itself.

These elements provide a magnificent spatial setting for the drafted masonry façade of the villa, articulated by two orders of pilasters in local volcanic stone. The design drew extensively on architecture at the Vatican in Rome, the seat of the patron’s power: the tripartite, fortified façade with central loggia (originally open) recalls Innocent VIII’s Villa Belvedere (1480s), while the double-ramped staircase in front of the villa and the triumphal-arch motif on the upper portico of the courtyard were derived from Bramante’s Cortile del Belvedere.

The contrast between the solid, massive lower story and the flat, abstract, geometrical upper stories, however, was characteristic of Vignola’s own classicizing Mannerist style.

The ground floor and piano nobile of the villa were planned with two sets of summer apartments on the north side and two winter apartments on the south, each with a salon, antechamber, bedroom, dressing room, and study. The basement housed service areas, while the small rooms in the top stories housed staff and retainers. In one of the angles at the front of the building is a monumental two-story spiral staircase; the opposite is a guard room and circular armory on the ground floor and a loggia and circular chapel on the piano nobile above.

The summer apartments were frescoed by Taddeo Zuccaro and Federico Zuccaro, although the illusionistic architecture on the walls of the Sala di Giove and the vault of the armory was designed by Vignola. After Taddeo’s death in 1566, Federico painted the Gabinetto dell’Ermatena, the circular chapel, and part of the Sala d’Ercole, all on the piano mobile.

He also painted the guard room and four rooms of the winter apartment on the ground floor (excluding the salon). Jacopo Bertoia completed the Sala d’Ercole in 1569, executed the vaults of the stanze della Penitenza, dei Guidizi, and dei Sogni in the winter apartment on the piano nobile, and began work on the Sala degli Angeli (also in the winter apartment) shortly before his death in 1572.

The complex iconographical program, glorifying the Farnese family and addressing major political, economic, spiritual, and intellectual concerns of Cardinal Farnese, was worked out in consultation with the patron by such scholarly advisors as Onofrio Panvinio, who devised the scheme for the Sala dei Fasti Farnese; Paolo Manuzio, the Venetian and Roman publisher; Annibal Caro, the humanist secretary to Cardinal Farnese; Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto, the Vatican librarian, who wrote the program for the Stanza della Penitenza; and perhaps also Fulvio Orsini, the Farnese librarian.

Villa Farnese – Gardens

The two walled lower gardens of the Villa Farnese were laid out to Vignola’s designs, in square parterres, with sculpture and fountains symbolizing the seasons and the regenerative cycles of nature. In the west garden—once linked by a pergola—are statues of Autumn and Winter and the Grotto of the Rain, a cave seemingly supported by six stucco satyrs with moisture dripping from the vault into a pond below. On the terrace above the grotto is the Fountain of Unicorns.

The north garden contains statues of Spring and Summer and the Fountain of Venus, with Venus flanked by two satyrs. At the junction of the two gardens is the Fountain of the Shepherd; water was designed to cascade down a rustic hill from two satyrs or fauns at the top, over a shell held by two nude water deities, to two terms and two reclining river gods flanking a statue of Mercury as the good shepherd.

The upper gardens and casino were laid out by Giacomo del Duca in the 1580s. He incorporated into the design terraces, fountains, and sculptures. They are remarkable for the synthesis of natural and manmade elements.

The discovery of a new vein of water in 1616 led Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to expand the upper gardens by adding two lower pavilions, 24 herms surrounding the parterres in front of the casino, gardens, and fountains at the rear of the casino, and ramps connecting the front and rear gardens.

The architect was probably Girolamo Rainaldi. The program of the upper gardens has never been worked out in detail, but the major elements include statues of Oblivion and Silence flanking the Lily Fountain, a dolphin water chain flowing from the Fountain of the Chalice, which is in turn flanked by two river gods with cornucopias, and two unicorn and dolphin fountains.

Villa Farnese Location

Villa Farnesina Address: Via della Lungara, 230, 00165 Roma, Italy. Get directions using this map:

Villa Farnese Map

The post Villa Farnese appeared first on Every Castle.

Villa Albani – Brief History

In 1746 Cardinal Alessandro Albani acquired a vineyard between the Via Nomentana and the Via Salaria, with the intention of providing a suitable setting for his collection of ancient sculptures.

From 1758 he was assisted in this collection by his librarian, the antiquary and Neo-classical theorist Johann Joachim Winckelmann.

Carlo Marchionni, who had previously worked for the Cardinal at Anzio and Castelgandolfo, was commissioned to design the main palace, which was constructed between 1755 and 1762.

Villa Albani – Architecture

The massive central block in nine bays consists of an open ground floor loggia of compressed Serlianas flanked by banded Ionic pilasters. Above, the piano nobile is articulated by plain Corinthian pilasters flanking windows with rusticated surrounds surmounted by combined segmental and triangular pediments.

The loggia is continued at reduced height and stepped back to create single-story lateral galleries. In the architecture of the palace, only the horizontality and lack of central emphasis of the main block foreshadow the values and interests of Neo-classicism.

These are strongly evident, however, in the interiors, decorated and painted by Anton Raphael Mengs, and the neo-Antique garden buildings, including a ruined temple designed by Marchionni under the influence of Winckelmann. These were intended to provide appropriate allegorical environments for ancient sculpture, such as the celebrated Antinous relief (AD 130–38).

Villa Albani Location

Villa Albani Address: Via Salaria, 92, 00198 Roma, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Villa Albani Map

The post Villa Albani appeared first on Every Castle.

Farnese Palace History

Standing on the Piazza Farnese, the Palazzo Farnese is the most important 16th-century palace in Rome.

In 1495 Cardinal Alessandro Farnese bought a small house from the Augustinian monks of S Maria del Popolo, and from 1514 to 1516 it was restored by Antonio da Sangallo, who was later to direct its complete reconstruction. By 1523 the surrounding buildings had been demolished, and under Sangallo, the first floor and its courtyard were completed.

After Farnese was elected Pope Paul III, he instructed Sangallo to expand the palace. The façade was extended from eleven to thirteen bays; the court acquired two new arcades, making five in total, and the entrance stairway was rebuilt.

When Sangallo died in 1546, the direction of the project was passed to Michelangelo. Although he was involved only briefly, his contribution was decisive. He raised the height of the first floor and duplicated it above with another, equally high, to create the ricetto, or first-floor gallery, roofed by vaults half-oval in section, which made space in the side ranges for servants’ quarters. He also designed the majestic cornice and the treatment of the central window over the entrance, recessed into the wall plane to give an inverted emphasis.

After an interruption following the death of Paul III (1549), construction was resumed under cardinals Ranuccio and Alessandro Farnese. From 1550 the project was directed by Vignola, who concerned himself mainly with the rear elevation, including a three-bay central loggia on the first floor. This loggia, overlooking the Tiber, was closed by Giacomo della Porta when he succeeded Vignola after the latter’s death in 1573 and replaced with one above it, which was closed on the court side of the building. When Ranuccio Farnese became the first of the family to make the Palazzo Farnese his permanent residence, he began the decoration of the interior with the north rooms on the façade and the front of the right wing.

Francesco Salviati was commissioned to fresco the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani, but he finished only the ceiling; the cycle was continued by Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro and is a brilliant example of Roman Mannerist historical painting. Alessandro Farnese commissioned the decoration by Daniele da Volterra of the corner room on the first floor.

The greatest patron, however, was Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who lived in the Farnese Palace from 1592. He had the Salon decorated in the style of Michelangelo and arranged the completion of the first-floor rooms, providing them all with painted ceilings. Then, in consultation with his librarian, he arranged for the decoration of the camera and the gallery overlooking the Tiber.

For the frescoes of these rooms, Annibale Carracci was called from Bologna in 1595, soon to be followed by his brother Agostino and other colleagues. Annibale painted the Camerino Farnese, showing his mastery of the mythological genre.

At the center was the canvas of Hercules at the Crossroads; at the sides were Hercules Bearing the Globe and Hercules Resting from his Labours, and in the lunettes Ulysses and the Sirens, the Catanian Brothers Carrying their Parents, Perseus and Medusa and Ulysses and Circe. The frescoes of the ceiling of the gallery, begun by Annibale in 1597, were inspired by the exploits of Alexander the Great and elaborated in the classicizing taste advocated by Giovanni Battista Agucchi. A large central scene of the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne is flanked at the sides with episodes representing the Loves of the Gods: on the right Paris Receiving the Golden Apple; on the left Pan Seducing Diana; at the ends Ganymede and Apollo and Daphne; and opposite the window Glaucus and Scylla (sometimes identified as the Rape of Galatea), Aurora and Cephalus, Polyphemus Killing Acis and Polyphemus Wooing Galatea. Between these large paintings are smaller ones and some monochrome medallions, and there were busts in niches along all the walls.

It is difficult to identify the work of specific assistants. In 1602–1604 Domenichino painted the Virgin and the Unicorn on the door in front of the windows and Perseus and Andromeda among the scenes along the windows; afterward he decorated the Loggia Tiberina with frescoes that were detached between 1816 and 1826 and placed near the bedroom of Ranuccio and Odoardo. In addition to carrying out the decoration of the Farnese’s palace interior, Odoardo also commissioned the Romitorio (hermitage) on the Tiber, as well as the layout of the gardens and the Piazza Farnese.

In 1635 the Farnese palace was left to the French embassy, and the camera on the Via Giulia was destroyed in 1662. All that remains are Annibale’s canvases Aurora and Night and Venus Sleeping, Rinaldo and Armida, and Diana and Actaeon. Of the Romitorio frescoes commissioned by Odoardo from Giovanni Lanfranco, only SS Anthony Abbot and Paul the Hermit in the Desert and St Simeon the Stylite survive. The gallery constitutes a landmark in 17th-century Italian painting and culture. The serene but subtly melancholy evocation of the pagan world was decisive in spreading throughout Europe the new neo-classicist approach of the early 17th century and brought the artists of the Bologna school to the attention of the international art world.

In the 18th century, the remaining camelina was lost when the adjoining church of S Maria dell’Orazione e Morte was rebuilt, and many of the artworks were sent to Naples and Caserta after passing to the Spanish Bourbons in 1787. The massive, powerful but simple structure of the palace served as a model for numerous later works in Rome, especially the palaces of Domenico Fontana in the Vatican, the Lateran, and the Quirinale Palace.

Palazzo Farnese Location

Address: Piazza Farnese, 67, 00186 Roma, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Palazzo Farnese Map

The post Palazzo Farnese appeared first on Every Castle.

Palazzo della Cancelleria History

Built between 1485–1511 as the palace of Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the Palazzo della Cancelleria was later used as the offices of the papal chancery and, under Napoleon, as law courts. It stands on the Piazza della Cancelleria and is now the residence of the Cardinal-Vicar of Rome.

The palace is one of the most important and influential examples of 15th-century Roman architecture, but no documentation identifies its architects. Raffaele Riario, the great-nephew of Sixtus IV, traditionally financed the palace with the winnings of one night’s gambling. It was taken from the Riario family after they were involved in a plot against Pope Leo X; the offices of the papal chancery were then installed. The church of S Lorenzo in Damaso, rebuilt with the palace, was incorporated into its fabric.

The long travertine façade, probably completed by 1495, is an elegant and delicate combination of flat rustication with paired pilasters on the first and second stories; it is framed with slight protruding end bays.

The windows are based on an ancient Roman prototype. The design, which reflects the influence of Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, has been interpreted as combining elements typical of Florence, Urbino, and Rome.

The wild rose, the Riario family emblem, is used in the decoration. The ground floor of the side flank incorporates shops; the Cancelleria was the first Renaissance palace to revive this ancient Roman tradition. The simple and harmonious courtyard features superimposed open loggias and a closed second-story decorated with pilasters.

It is said that the 44 granite columns were taken from the Theatre of Pompey and that stones from the Colosseum were used for general building purposes.

Palazzo della Cancelleria Location

Address: Piazza della Cancelleria, 1, 00100 Roma, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Palazzo della Cancelleria Map

The post Palazzo della Cancelleria appeared first on Every Castle.

The Palace of Quirinale is a grand structure standing on the northwest slope of the Quirinal, the highest hill in Rome. It was the principal summer palace of the pope from 1592 to 1870 and the residence of the monarch from 1870 to 1947; it has been the official residence of the Italian president since 1947. Its historical importance is probably greater than its architectural significance.

Palace of Quirinale History

Palace of Quirinale was begun by Pope Gregory XIII in 1583 as a summer retreat, on the site of an earlier villa, and by 1592 Clement VIII was in residence. In 1625 Urban VIII had the palace and the newly enlarged gardens enclosed with fortifications, a project probably supervised by Carlo Maderno. Construction and expansion continued until the 18th century.

Quirinale Palace is harmonious in style despite the fact that many architects played a role in its construction and expansion. Ottaviano Mascherino originally began the current building as a free-standing villa when he designed the two-story loggia on the north side of the courtyard, the clock tower, and an oval spiral staircase.

Construction at Quirinale Palace was continued by Giovanni and Domenico Fontana for Sixtus V, and the main body of the palace was completed under Paul V by Flaminio Ponzio and, after the latter’s death, by Carlo Maderno. The portal of the main façade, by Maderno, is decorated with statues of St Peter and St Paul. Above is a benediction loggia by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, decorated with a Virgin and Child group by Pompeo Ferrucci. The Chapel of the Annunciation was designed by Ponzio.

The Sala Regia is by Carlo Maderno, as is the Pauline Chapel, which was built to house conclaves and is on the same scale as the Sistine Chapel. The manica lunga (‘long wing’), which housed the cardinals during conclaves, was lengthened and enlarged by Bernini and Ferdinando Fuga; Fuga built the Coffee House in the garden of Pope Benedict XIV.

Many artists decorated the interior of the palace in a variety of styles over several decades; it has a Rococo library and a chinoiserie salon, and some of the fireplaces are decorated with ancient Roman mosaics brought from Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. The Chapel of the Annunciation was decorated by Guido Reni in 1610 with the Birth of the Virgin, the Annunciation and figures, and other scenes from the life of the Virgin. The chapel also contains a Presentation in the Temple and other figures by Antonio Carracci. The Pauline Chapel has gilded stucco decorations and a sculpted lunette.

Between 1742 and 1743 Giovanni Paolo Panini painted one of the rooms in the mezzanines with imaginary architectural views and the Coffee House with historical scenes of Rome. Other paintings in the Coffee House are by Pompeo Batoni, Agostino Masucci, and others. The Appartamento Napoleonico was decorated by Felice Giani and Francesco Manno. The large garden has an impressive Organ Fountain and a labyrinth.

Palazzo Quirinale Location

Quirinal Palace Address: Piazza del Quirinale, 00187 Roma, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Palazzo Quirinale Map

The post Palazzo del Quirinale appeared first on Every Castle.

The Barberini Palace History

Planning for a new family palace began soon after the election of the Barberini pope, Urban VIII, on 6 August 1623. After extended negotiations, the suburban site, on the north slope of Quirinal Hill, was purchased from Alessandro Sforza on 18 December 1625. It included a palace of modest size, partly of recent construction; this was eventually incorporated as the north wing of the new palace, of which construction began in December 1628 and continued until 1638.

The Palazzo Barberini is without precedent or progeny in Roman palace buildings. It is an H-shaped block with no interior courtyard. Between the north and south legs of the H stretches the three-story, seven-bay loggia of the west façade, glazed on the upper stories but open on the ground level to a broad, receding portico, of which the central axis was originally closed by a fountain set in a hemicycle.

The palace looks across the city to the Vatican and St Peter’s, then the source of the family’s new prominence. The two side wings were to house two papal nephews: Taddeo Barberini, with his family, in the north wing, and Cardinal Francesco Barberini in the south.

The apartments of many rooms are arranged in the linear suites characteristic of Roman 17th-century planning, joined by the ground-floor portico, two grand staircases, and a central salone lying behind the loggia.

The sources of this extraordinary design lay in far-ranging discussions involving both amateurs and professional architects, and responsibility for it cannot be assigned to a single person. Taddeo, apparently inspired by the plan and imposing image of the Palazzo Colonna (later Barberini) at Palestrina, proposed the idea of a two-part palace that would house the two parts of the family, ecclesiastical and secular

Between 1671 and 1679 the Barberini palace was extensively remodeled, apparently under the direction of Angelo Torrone. The entire ground floor was given over to the display of the family’s considerable collection of paintings and sculptures, and the principal apartments on the first floor were rearranged.

The hemicycle of the ground-floor portico was pierced, and a long axial drive was extended from the portico upwards through the gardens to the eastern extremity of the site. New retaining walls isolated the palace from the gardens on the upper portions of the site to the east and south, and a bridge was built to the south garden. A theatre was built to the north of the palace in 1638, incorporating a wall and portal earlier designed by Pietro da Cortona.

The great gateway along the Via delle Quattro Fontane was constructed in 1864 by Francesco Azzurri (1831–1901).

The Palazzo Barberini contains a virtual compendium of late 16th- and 17th-century ceiling paintings, with many in the north wing preserved from the old Palazzo Sforza, including scenes from the Old Testament painted by Antonio Viviani, some of which are framed by stucco moldings bearing Sforza emblems. The stylistic variety of works commissioned by the Barberini may be the result of either their wide tastes or their haste in preparing the palace as a residence

Pietro da Cortona also directed the work (1631–1632) of Romanelli, Baldini, and Giacinto Gimignani in the small gallery of the garden apartment of Anna Colonna, wife of Taddeo Barberini.

The long, narrow barrel vault was adorned with a symmetrical pattern of rinceaux and animals. A broad frieze filled the upper part of the walls, only two fragments of which survive, the Founding of Palestrina and a Sacrifice to Juno. Andrea Camassei frescoed the ceiling of the anteroom adjoining the Allegory of Divine Wisdom with God the Father Dividing the Angel Hierarchies (1632) and, on the ground floor, he frescoed the ceiling of Taddeo’s audience room with Apollo and the Muses on Mt Parnassus (1631) as well as painting a guardian angel in his private oratory.

Between 1626 and 1631 Giovanni Domenico Marziani (il Maltese) created ceilings featuring Hercules and Bellerophon in Taddeo’s apartment and a Nativity in Anna’s room. Simone Lagi decorated the vault of Taddeo’s second anteroom with a painted balustrade, monkeys, exotic birds, and a coat of arms borne aloft by putti.

The best known of the Barberini’s Palace ceilings is that of the central Gran Salone on the first floor, representing the Triumph of Divine Providence and the Accomplishment of its Ends through the Pontificate of Urban VIII Barberini, painted by Cortona between 1632 and 1639.

The composition is firmly bound to its setting by the feigned architectural framework that follows the lines of the coved vault. In the central field, the personification of Divine Providence commands Immortality to crown the Barberini coat of arms, at that moment being assembled by figures representing the three Theological Virtues and Rome.

The coves of the vault are filled with allegorical figures that elaborate on the ethical character and political actions of the ideal pope and papal family. The vitality of both figures and composition is matched by Cortona’s use of intense color, unprecedented in fresco painting.

Throughout the palace, the walls were covered with hangings of leather or fabric that could be changed according to the season or occasion. For the Gran Salone, Francesco Barberini commissioned three successive sets of tapestries, all illustrating the principal theme of the vault fresco by specific historical examples.

The cycle of the Life of Constantine included seven tapestries designed by Rubens that CardinalFrancesco had received in 1625 as a gift from Louis XIII, King of France; five additional cartoons were produced by Pietro da Cortona.

Palazzo Barberini Location

Address: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica-Palazzo Barberini
Via delle Quattro Fontane, 13, 00184 Roma, Italy

Palazzo Barberini Map

The post Palazzo Barberini appeared first on Every Castle.

The Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta) is a large 18th-century palazzo situated in the Italian town of Caserta, the successor of ancient and medieval Capua. The town is the capital of a province of the Campania region and is situated 28 km from Naples. Its growth dates from the 19th century.

Reggia di Caserta History

The Bourbon king Charles VII of Naples (from 1759 King Charles III of Spain) decided to make Caserta the site of a royal residence in imitation of Versailles. His choice was based on the excellent local hunting and the vulnerability of his palazzo at Naples in the event of a popular uprising or an attack from the sea.

The building was designed by Luigi Vanvitelli and executed between 1752 and 1772. It was inhabitable from 1775 onwards and in the late 1770s and during the 1780s such artists as Fidele Fischetti and Domenico Mondo produced frescoes for various rooms.

It was not fully furnished until the mid-19th century. Charles of Bourbon never lived in it; his son Ferdinand IV did so only occasionally, and it only fulfilled its intended purpose as a royal residence for the Bourbons between 1830 and 1860.

The royal palace of Caserta, standing as a self-contained block in a flat site, is of striking appearance. The five-story façade (253 m×49 m) has, however, a certain monotonous quality exacerbated by the absence of the architectural and ornamental additions intended by Vanvitelli.

Reggia di Caserta’s interior is more animated: it is divided into four equal-sized oblong courts radiating from a dramatic central octagonal vestibule, where Vanvitelli employed scenographic principles to lead the viewer through a series of imposing vistas.

The main axis is primarily for communication, while the transverse axis leading from the vestibule contains the ceremonial staircase, chapel, and theatre. The chapel and to a certain extent the theatre were modeled on those at Versailles.

The chapel of Caserta Palace presents a lavish display of marble work and incorporates several paintings, including a Presentation in the Temple by Anton Raphael Mengs and an Immaculate Conception by Giuseppe Bonito. Although the grand marble staircase is the area of greatest magnificence, the masonry throughout the building is beautiful in its precision.

The formal gardens of the Caserta Palace were laid out according to French textbook rules by Martin Biancour under Vanvitelli’s supervision. The dominating axis is about 3 km long from the palace entrance to the waterfall at the end of the park and was intended to be prolonged in the opposite direction as a road reaching all the way to Naples.

A broad stretch of water, the canalone, with large fountains, occupies the length of the vista which ends at the great cascade at the foot of the mountain. To one side is a garden in the English style with rare plants.

The system by which water is conveyed to the park (1753–69) is one of the greatest technical achievements of the 18th century; 42 km long, it includes a spectacular aqueduct, the Archi della Valle, of antique proportions (528 m l.×60 m h.)

On the city side of the palazzo, Vanvitelli developed only the schematic design seen in the bird’s-eye view in his Dichiarazione, with an oval forecourt housing barracks and stables and roads radiating outwards. The town later developed to one side of the palazzo and not in front of it as originally envisaged.

Caserta Royal Palace Location

Reggia di Caserta Address: Piazza Carlo III, 81100 Caserta, Italy. Get help with directions using the map provided below:

Caserta Royal Palace Map

The post Caserta Palace appeared first on Every Castle.

Castel del Monte is a castle in Puglia, southern Italy. The castle stands isolated in an elevated position on the low plateau, the Murge, between Corato and Andria. Its name is derived from that of S Maria del Monte, the church of the nearby Benedictine monastery.

Castel del Monte History

Castel del Monte is the only Apulian castle to preserve its original character; it was built ex novo in a single campaign in the mid-13th century as part of Emperor Frederick II’s fortifications in southern Italy and Sicily. Unlike Frederick’s other Apulian castles, but like those in Sicily, Castel del Monte has a rigorously geometrical plan, and its architectural features are derived from north European and Cistercian buildings.

It is not known if the Castle del Monte was finished before Frederick’s death in 1250. On the fall of the Hohenstaufen, Charles I of Anjou (1266–1285) imprisoned Manfred’s sons and followers of the Swabian court at Castel del Monte. From the time of the Angevin Queen Joanna I (1343–1382) until 1507 it was part of the royal domain. Under Spanish domination, it became the fief of Consalvo de Córdoba. In 1528 Odet de Foix, Lord of Lautrec, bombarded the castle, damaging its outer defenses, and in the 17th century, the building was uninhabited and already stripped of its furnishings.

Castel del Monte was purchased by the Italian State in 1876 and became a national monument; it has been restored several times since 1879.

The exterior of the Castel del Monte looks like a fortress. It has massive walls, corner towers, loopholes, and portcullis gates; the finely jointed masonry is composed of large limestone ashlar blocks. The interior, however, reveals that it was conceived as a hunting lodge, with every possible comfort. Some scholars attribute the original conception to Frederick II himself since many of the singular aspects of the building are in accordance with his ideas.

In fact, Castel del Monte fits more naturally into the medieval notion of the building as a mirror of the Universe, following rigorous geometric schemes and regulated by precise numerical relationships.

The plan of the Castel del Monte is based on the octagon, which determines both its external perimeter and that of the courtyard, as well as the plan of each of the eight corner towers. The castle has a maximum width of 49.6 m, measured from opposite angles; each side measures 9.8 m between the towers, and the outer wall is 3 m thick at the base.

The overall design of the main entrance, facing towards Andria, is Classical, but with Gothic details. The door has a lintel resting on pilasters with foliate capitals; the pointed arch above springs from lions that project over the abaci of the flanking columns. The door is further framed by two fluted pilasters supporting a corbelled cornice, with a form of pediment above.

There was once a stairway in front of this portal, with two symmetrical flights. A second door, facing the countryside, opened opposite the main one. The six ground-floor windows are round-headed with double embrasures, cut from blocks of pink breccia. The eight windows on the upper floor are pointed with twin lights, except for one on the northwest side, which has three lights; the embrasures are made from various kinds of marble. A robust string course separates the lower story from the upper, and the total height of the building is 24.4 m. There was no moat; the outer defenses were provided by a circuit of walls.

The interior arrangement of the Castel del Monte is the same on both floors: eight trapezoidal rooms, nearly all intercommunicating, with doors and windows facing the inner court. The rooms are each vaulted in three sections, with a rib vault over the central square and quasi-barrel vaults over the lateral, triangular sections. The vault supports consist of half-columns with foliate bases and capitals in pink breccia on the ground-floor, and groups of three small colonnettes in white marble with single capitals on the upper floor. The white limestone ribs have rosette bosses.

The interior walls were faced with slabs of coral breccia or plastered and painted in imitation of it; its intense red color was probably intended to suggest imperial purple. The ‘antique’ ambiance was also evoked by the mosaic pavements on the ground floor; a section with polychrome rosettes survives. Three of the interior rooms communicate with the inner court through doors surmounted by pointed arches.

Each room gives access to the corner towers, five of which, spanned by octopartite rib vaults on corbels, was designed as service rooms; the other three, circular on the interior, contained spiral stairs leading to the upper floor. The upper rooms are profusely decorated with sculptures in colored materials. The eight walls of the courtyard are articulated by pointed wall arches rising from pilasters at the angles of the octagon; a balcony once ran around the walls at the level of the arch apexes.

Castel del Monte Location

Castel del Monte Address: 76123 Andria BT, Italy
Approximate Geographic Coordinates: 41.085093,16.271245

Castel del Monte Map

The post Castel del Monte appeared first on Every Castle.