The Great Hall
Seventy-six metres of mirror and gold โ Versailles before Versailles.
user:Lalupa โ Public domain ยท Parsifall โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Parsifall โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Michele Ursino โ CC BY-SA 2.0
Because it is a standing family home, not a state museum: the Colonna have lived in their palace eight unbroken centuries โ Rome's longest family residence โ sharing the great wing one morning weekly in balance of heritage and privacy. The scarcity is half the spell: a hall never museum-crowded.
Rome's two great private palaces: the Doria, open daily, richer in paintings (Velรกzquez, Caravaggio) along packed corridors; the Colonna grander of hall, rarer of door, gentler of crowd. The serious take both; choosers: Doria for pure art, Colonna for living splendour.
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The Galleria Colonna is Rome's most sumptuous private Baroque hall and its weekly secret: the palace of the city's oldest family โ the Colonna of a pope and Lepanto's command โ opens its great wing Saturday mornings only: a mirror-gold-column hall of seventy-six metres compared to Versailles's and preceding it, crowded with five centuries of family collecting โ Veronese, Tintoretto, Guercino โ crowned by Annibale Carracci's Bean Eater: a peasant at his plain supper amid the sea of princes, startling in honesty. On its steps rests a French cannonball where it fell (1849) โ left by the family as a siege medal โ and the visit spreads through apartments and terraced gardens on the Quirinal slope, the 11am English tour opening the private princely rooms. Roman Holiday's closing press scene was filmed here โ the hall familiar before you enter.
Seventy-six metres of mirror and gold โ Versailles before Versailles.
Carracci painting honesty amid pomp โ the surprise picture.
The princess's press-conference hall โ cinema in situ.
Via della Pilotta 17, 00187 Rome
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