Rome - Palazzo Farnese

The effect of the Palazzo Farnese is enhanced by the fact that it can be viewed across an open square. In this palace, the handsomest of all the 16th century Roman palaces, Renaissance architecture, which had begun in Rome with the Palazzo Venezia, reached its magnificent culmination. Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, later Pope Paul III (1534-49), commissioned Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in 1514 to build the palace. After Sangallo's death it was continued by Michelangelo (from 1546) and completed by Giacomo della Porta in 1589. The palace later passed into the hands of the Bourbons of Naples, and it is now the French Embassy. The exterior is of majestic effect with its massive structure of ashlar masonry and its restrained articulation, mainly based on simple geometric forms. The facade, 46m/150ft long, has three storys of contrasting design which are almost completely dominated by the fenestration. These rows of windows with their different surrounds, the main entrance doorway and the central window on the first floor create a total harmony, so that nothing could be altered, added or taken away without reducing the perfection of the whole. The side elevations repeat the structure of the main front, but the narrowness of the streets deprives them of their full effect. The rear facade faces the Tiber. The interior courtyard follows ancient models in having Doric columns and pillars on the ground floor, Ionic on the first and Corinthian on the second. Stones from the colosseum were used in the construction of the palace. A notable feature of the interior of the palaces is the gallery on the first floor, 20m/65ft long and 6m/20ft wide, with frescoes ("The Triumph of Love in the Universe") by Annibale Caracci (1597-1604).