The frightening House of Monsters in Piazza Trinità dei Monti
In the historic center of Rome there is a singular building, the Zuccari palace. The building is also popularly known as the “House of Monsters” and owes its fame to the disturbing entrance door: a giant wide open mouth, with a nose, eyes and eyebrows. Find out why it was made this way.
A particular decoration that also frames the two side windows. It was built by Federico Zuccari in 1952. It currently houses the Hertziana Library (Max Planck Institute for the history of art).
The Palazzetto is located between via Sistina and via Gregoriana and on the latter road it has an entrance with decorations.
Federico Zuccari was a famous artist and he decided to create a sumptuous home that reflected the artist’s importance, his flair and his creativity.
In 1590 he bought the land and almost ruined himself almost to complete his grandiose projects, which had to be partially resized.
Over the centuries it passed from hand to hand and then became the property of Enrichetta Hertz, who then donated it to the German government, establishing the Hertziana Library, specializing in the history of art.
Gabriele D’Annunzio mentioned the palace in the novel The Pleasure (Andrea Sperelli moved there).
The most curious feature of the building is, as mentioned, the decoration, in particular in the frames of the external doors and windows that have the appearance of monstrous open mouths, inspired by the Bomarzo Garden and linked to the imaginative style of Mannerist architecture on the threshold of the 17th century.
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The building initially consisted of three bodies: the one used as a study on Piazza Trinità dei Monti, the residential one with the main facade on Via Sistina, and the sumptuous garden with entrance from Via Gregoriana. In contrast to the simplicity of the exterior, the interior looks like the home of an illustrious artist. The study occupied the tip of the entire complex with a trapezoidal plan and represented, in an anthropomorphic similitude, the head.
The three masks on Via Gregoriana still form one of the major attractions of the Palazzo. For Zuccari, who years earlier had used a similar form for an illustration of Dante’s Hell Gate, they had a clear meaning: they were destined to astound and frighten the visitor, who would have hesitated at first to cross the threshold, but would have been all the more struck, by contrast, by the heavenly enchantment of the garden.
The latter, almost square in shape with 17 meters on each side, was covered by a rose pergola and was embellished with fountains and statues.
