Barberini's Palace, 60th years old
ROME – He completed 60 years one of the “landmarks” in Italy in the postwar culture: the Palazzo Barberini that was bought by the Government in 1949 to be the Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome, the only Western capital without a worthy of the name, opened its few rooms May 21, 1953, and then suffered for another half a century to get (almost) the entire building and turn it into art gallery. Are the hopes and delays of a certain Italian culture.
The anniversary will be celebrated with a party, now up to 24 (with free admission, visits every quarter of an hour led by young art historians, and eventually a concert) and tomorrow from 9 to 19: at 11 and 16, two more concerts, from Monteverdi to Stevie Wonder.
HISTORY AND STORIES
To enhance a building, already amazing in itself and full of history, and its function. The Gallery of Ancient Art in the new Capital is one of the first acts of united: it is already established in 1863. It was at the Palazzo Corsini: totally inadequate to accommodate all the paintings. Therefore, at a cost of 600 million (a tidy sum in 1949) and the willingness of the then Minister Guido Gonella, you are purchasing the building, now decayed and since 1934 the seat of the Officers’ Club.
In 1625, two years after he became Pope Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini wanted it, coming through from the Giubbonari where he was, at the Quirinale: the palace of the popes. They put their hands three great architects: the façade and the building are of Caesar Maderno, Francesco Borromini of the spiral staircase, the front garden and another one of Gianlorenzo Bernini. And inside, there is also the Triumph of Divine Providence by Pietro da Cortona: a huge fresco in every sense.
It will be the setting for many films, beginning with Roman Holiday, will forget all chiaroscuro of the family for Pasquino, the pope was “Urban VIII bearded beautiful / finished the Jubilee requires being equal,” because so many public works realized by imposing new taxes; “quod non fecerunt barbarians, fecerunt Barberini,” because the city naked (their and others), deprive the Pantheon of bronze beams; Urban Galileo processes.
And during the fascist period in 1934, the family manages to remove the fideicommissum that kept tied collections, largely sold. The State is content to 16 pictures; leave The beautiful Titian, Caravaggio’s The Bari, considered a violinist of Raphael. Quintino Sella wanted the building to the palace; D’Annunzio lets you meet the two main characters of his novel pleasure.
MASTERPIECES
The state buys, but long they remain officers (will be the Minister Alberto Ronchey to evict them) and we lived well as a barber and a former caretaker, until 2003 a homeless washed at the fountain of the hallway. So much trouble, but now the halls are 34, also full of masterpieces, and in 2011, 145,000 visitors, 327,000 euro of insertion: you can do more, the work is not finished, but it certainly will, the museum it is not even among the 30 most visited in the country.
Yet, it preserves important collections: the few remaining paintings of the Barberini, those Sciarra, Chigi, Hertz, Torlonia, the pawnshop and more. With absolute masterpieces, from Raphael’s Fornarina, to Caravaggio. 1,465 are two thousand paintings and decorative art objects: portraits of Hans Holbein and busts by Bernini, a Madonna by Filippo Lippi and Beccafumi, sketches of the Greek, and more.
The state buys a building already mutilated also had a theater with 3,500 seats, many of today’s Auditorium Plan; in 1902, already sent to the Vatican valuable library; Germany is still in a mosaic from Praeneste that Hitler wanted it for himself, are returned five paintings of 12, already borrowed Embassy in Berlin, and declared destroyed by fire, perhaps, with these, if they are also saved others, it is open season.
“Nobody in the world has as many Caravaggeschi, recovered from deposits Giovanni Bellini and Lorenzo Lotto,” explained director Anna Lo Bianco: This weekend, we will be celebrating for them too, for a palace and many paintings finally found.
Hath fulfilled the hope that “many wonderful Roman collections offer glory to form a gallery worthy of the capital,” the desire to give to the Art Gallery of Ancient Art “a decent placement ‘means the proclaimed already in 1863. No city in the world has “ever had a wealth of works of classical and modern art comparable with Rome,” wrote Carlo Pietrangeli in 1985 and listed 57 collected from the sixteenth century onwards. Behold the not too much that remains of it, is mostly right here, and be seen.
Happy Birthday!
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