Palazzo Farnese

History

"The most imposing Italian palace of the 16th century", according to Sir Banister Fletcher, this palazzo was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, one of Bramante's assistants in the design of St. Peter's and an important Renaissance architect in his own right. Construction began in 1515 after one or two years of preparation, and was commissioned by Alessandro Farnese, who had been appointed as a cardinal in 1493 at age 25 and was living a princely lifestyle. Work was interrupted by the Sack of Rome in 1527.

When, in January 1534 Alessandro became Pope Paul III, the size of the palace was increased significantly and he employed Michelangelo who completed the redesigned third story with its deep cornice and revised the courtyard as well. The post-1534 developments were not only a reflection of Alessandro's change in status but employed architecture to express the power of the Farnese family, much as at their Villa Farnese at Caprarola. The massive palace block and its facade dominate the Piazza Farnese.

Architectural features of the main facade include the alternating triangular and segmental pediments that cap the windows of the piano nobile, the central rusticated portal and Michelangelo's projecting cornice which throws a deep shadow on the top of the facade. Michelangelo revised the central window in 1541, adding an architrave to give a central focus to the facade, above which is the largest papal stemma, or coat-of-arms with papal tiara, Rome had ever seen. When Paul appeared on the balcony, the entire facade became a setting for his person. The courtyard, initially open arcades, is ringed by an academic exercise in ascending orders (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian). The piano nobile entablature was given a frieze with garlands, added by Michelangelo.

On the garden side of the palace, which faced the River Tiber, Michelangelo proposed the innovatory design of a bridge which, if completed, would have linked the palace with the gardens of the Vigna Farnese, Alessandro's holding on the opposite bank, that later became incorporated into the adjacent villa belonging to the Chigi family, which the Farnese purchased in 1584 and renamed the Villa Farnesina. While the practicalities of achieving this bridge remain dubious, the idea was a bold and expansive one. …

Interior decorations

Several main rooms were frescoed with elaborate allegorical programs including the Hercules cycle in the Sala d'Ercole or the Hercules Room, the "Sala del Mappamondo" or The Room of Maps, and the well known The Loves of the Gods (1597–1608) in the Farnese Gallery, both by the Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci. Other rooms have frescoes by Daniele da Volterra and by other artists.

For generations, the room with Herculean frescoes accommodated the famous Greco-Roman antique sculpture known as the Farnese Hercules. Other works from the family collection of classical sculpture were also housed in the palace.

One of the vault and ceiling frescoes by Annibale Carracci is Galleria Farnese, an art gallery. According to Ann Sutherland Harris, "The Galleria frescoes make even more extensive use of ancient sculptural and architectural sources, and in addition take their basic structure from two ceilings by the most prestigious artists of the High Renaissance in Rome, the Loggia of Psyche by Raphael and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling". Carracci adopted the quadri riportati, which the ceiling is divided into units and turned it into a collection of framed paintings, along with the cast masks among the garlands, and carved putti, and sculptures supporting the central scene. This large central scene depicts the triumphal progress of Bacchus and Ariadne. Two smaller paintings are attached to the top and bottom of the central picture, and two vertical pictures on either side, filled with sphinxes, Pan, and two satyrs.

Inspired works

The Palazzo's design has inspired several buildings outside Italy, including the Detroit Athletic Club in Detroit, Michigan; Château Grimaldi near Aix-en-Provence, France; the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., US; the Chief Secretary's Building in Sydney; the Banco di Roma in Alexandria, Egypt; the Royal Palace, Stockholm, and the Cunard Building in Liverpool. Also in England, Charles Barry's great admiration for the building led him to use it as the model for London's Reform Club.

Puccini's Tosca

In Puccini's opera Tosca (1900), set in Napoleonic Rome, the heroine's confrontation with the malevolent chief of police, Scarpia, takes place in Palazzo Farnese. The Palazzo was inherited from the Farnese by the Bourbon kings of Naples, from whom the French government purchased it in 1874. Though the government of Benito Mussolini purchased it in 1936, the French Embassy remains, under a 99-year lease for which they pay the Italian government a symbolic fee of 1 euro per month.