Rome Guide
Rome
Galleria di Arte Antica
Address: Via Barberini 18
Opening time: Tues– Sun 8.30am–7.30pm
Price: €5
The vast Palazzo Barberini is home to the Galleria di Arte Antica, a rich patchwork of mainly Italian art from the early Renaissance to late Baroque period. Entry is by way of the spiral staircase on the right, the work of Borromini, which takes you up to the Gran Salone, dominated by Pietro da Cortona's manic fresco The Triumph of Divine Providence, which is truly one of the city's best free attractions, as the ticket office lies just beyond. In the gallery proper, Raphael's beguiling Fornarina is the first thing you see, a painting of the daughter of a Trasteveran baker thought to have been Raphael's mistress (Raphael's name appears clearly on the woman's bracelet); there's also Fra' Filippo Lippi's warmly maternal Madonna and Child, painted in 1437 and introducing background details, notably architecture, into Italian religious painting for the first time; a room full of portraits, including Bronzino's rendering of the marvellously erect Stefano Colonna; and portraits of both Henry VIII and St Thomas More by Hans Holbein, as well as Guido Reni's haunting depiction of Beatrice Cenci.