Palazzo Cesi Armellini

Location

The palace is located in Rome’s Rione Borgo, between Via della Conciliazione and Borgo Santo Spirito, with the main front along the south side of the former road. The palace lies east of the southernmost of the two propylaea erected by Marcello Piacentini in 1950 to frame the view of Piazza Pio XII which is the forecourt to Saint Peter's Square. It borders to the east Palazzo Serristori, another Renaissance building.

History

The first palace on this site was erected between 1517 and 1520 by Cardinal Francesco Armellini, possibly after a project of Giulio Romano or his pupils. Armellini, born in Perugia, was a skilled financier. After moving to Rome, he became immensely rich and was appointed Cardinal and counselor by Pope Leo X Medici (r. 1513–21), who adopted him. Chief of the Medici party in Rome, after having risked to lose all his patrimony during the reign of Pope Adrian VI (r. 1522–3), he became treasurer under his successor Clement VII Medici (r. 1523–34). Armellini was indirectly responsible of the Sack of Rome in 1527, since in 1525 he unwisely advised the Pope to discharge almost all his soldiers, leaving the city almost without defense. On 6 May 1527, the Landsknechts of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V burst into the city pulling down a wall of his palace's garden while he was trying to bury there his jewels and the treasure of the pope. The palace was pillaged by the soldiers, and Armellini was barely able to escape to Castel Sant'Angelo, lifted up inside a basket. The palace erected by the cardinal was luxurious, served by 130 servants, and was decorated by artists like Martino da Parma, Giovenale da Narni and Anderlino da Mantova. …

Description

Despite its 20th century reduction, the palace has retained its late Renaissance character, and together with the palazzi Torlonia, dei Penitenzieri, and Serristori, is one of the four Renaissance palaces in Borgo which survived the destruction of the spina between 1937 and 1950. The brick façade, which on the ground floor has a rusticated render, contains several shopfronts. The main portal, which was moved during the reduction of the façade from 12 to 8 bays, is flanked by two Doric pillars, and bears an entablature with metopes composed with architectonic elements of the Cesi family. The gate's keystone bears a monumental marble coat of arms of the Cesi family. The upper façade shows exposed bricks, and is chanted by double lesenes, which divide it in squares containing the windows, whose frames bear the inscription P.DONATUS.CAR.CAESIUS., Pier Donato Cesi's name in Latin. On the west corner has been mounted a shield bearing a protome representing a lion's head.

The yard originally had a square shape, with five arches borne by pillars. They bear Tuscan capitals at the ground floor and Ionic capitals at the noble floor. During the renovation the west wing, which was decorated with 16th-century frescoes representing putti and landscapes, has been shortened of two arches, so that the yard is now rectangular. The loggia on the yard is still decorated with a cycle of Renaissance frescoes representing the life of King Solomon, alternated with tondi representing women and winged putti. Behind the loggia there are several rooms decorated during the Renaissance with frescoes and elaborated coffer ceilings, the most notable of them being the one decorated with the coat of arms of the house of Cesi. In 1950 a living room at the ground floor has been decorated with ten frescoes representing the seats of the Salvatorian order around the world.