Palazzo Barberini

About this place

The Palazzo Barberini is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today, it houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome. Around 1549 Cardinal Alessandro Sforza came into possession of the garden/vineyard of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi on the Quirinal Hill, where the Sforza family had a palazzetto built. The sloping, semi-urban site was purchased in 1625 from Alessandro Sforza, Duca di Segni, by Maffeo Barberini, of the Barberini family, who became Pope Urban VIII. Three great architects worked to create the Palazzo, each contributing his own style and character to the building. Notice how the building presents itself to the surrounding streets or landscape, then compare its public and more intimate spaces. This helps explain how architecture expressed the position, resources and ambitions of the people who commissioned it.