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The Doria Villa is one of the Eternal City’s overlooked treasures. © SImone Matteo/Giuseppe Manzoni/Dreamstime.com
Rome is packed with art, but while most visitors queue to visit the Borghese Gallery or the Vatican museums, there are spectacular collections you can have all to yourself. The grand palaces of Rome’s noble families were built—and decorated—during the Renaissance.
Some of the city’s best art hangs in the historic halls of these princely dwellings. An urban palace packed with paintings, the Doria Pamphilj is the largest privately owned palazzo in Rome, still owned by descendants of the princely clan.
Set on one of Rome’s primary shopping streets, Via del Corso, it’s just a few steps from the Capitoline museum and the pantheon. Yet most tourists walk by without a glance, unaware that inside are rooms filled with hundreds of works by the likes of Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, and Bernini.
The $14 ticket price includes an audio guide narrated by Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj himself. Here are the full details.
A sprawling palazzo that has hosted popes, presidents and princes, the palazzo Colonna has been the family seat of the important Roman noble family for eight centuries. The palace is still the Colonna family residence so the art gallery is only open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.
I stood in awe before the works of Guido Reni, Annibale Carracci, Tintoretto, Ghirlandaio and Veronese, with only a handful of other visitors in the building. The Sala Grande will look familiar to movie buffs; it was the scene of Audrey Hepburn’s press conference in Roman Holiday, where she and Gregory peck wistfully parted ways. Admission is $15.50.
Another palace built by an illustrious family, the palazzo Corsini, along with its accompanying artworks, was sold to the state in 1883 and its collection was kept intact. My personal favorite is Gentileschi’s realistic Madonna and Child, but other masters found here include Carracci, Caravaggio and Luca Giordano Rubens.
The Baroque palace with its huge halls is located on the Janiculum Hill, in the Trastevere District. Sometimes called “the Eighth Hill of Rome” you’ll have one of the best views of the domes and towers of the city if you walk uphill a bit. Be sure to pass through the neighboring Botanical Garden, which was the palace’s private park. Admission is $8. You can find out more by going here.
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