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millions of tourists come colosseum And Sistine Chapel Each year, yet only a small fraction step inside the gilded halls of Rome’s most exclusive landmark: the Colonna Palace.
Hidden in plain sight is the private house-museum, spread across four wings covering an entire block in the city center. Its owners stick to their secretive ways, keeping the Baroque palace’s paintings, sculptures, busts, tapestries and 76-metre (249-foot) Great Hall out of the public eye. The doors are open to small groups, 10 people at a time, for a few hours on Friday and Saturday mornings, guided by art historians.
“We cannot have mass tourism. This is not what is desired,” said Elisabetta Cecchini, a restorer of the palace, adding that the reason any visitors are allowed is that art dies in the absence of public appreciation. “It is not intended to be converted into a museum.”
The current prince of the family, Don Prospero Colonna, still lives there, occasionally sanctioning events such as the book launch of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and 2018. Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition of Catholic fashion, attended by designer Donna Versace and Vogue magazine’s Anna Wintour. Both are rare examples of journalists gaining entry.
The former superintendent of Rome’s museums, Claudio Strinnati, supports the relative solitude of the palace, calling it “undoubtedly one of the greatest artistic heritages of humanity” and the family’s duty to protect it.
“These were not conceived as tourist attractions,” he said. “Rather, they are made for people who have a certain sense of history.”
Since the 12th century, the castle has belonged to the Colonnas, part of the “black aristocracy” – namely Roman Families that remained loyal to the Pope and the Papal State even after Italian forces occupied the city in 1870 to create a unified nation. They hung black banners outside their palaces to show that they were in mourning, while within their walls, they held fast to their masterpieces.
For two centuries, Colonna has maintained a trust that guarantees that the palace’s precious artefacts will always remain there. Princess Isabella Colonna is credited with saving the family’s treasury. She fled Rome when the Nazis invaded, but all the artworks were ordered “crammed into a wing of the building, the entrances of which were walled off,” Cecchini said. The soldiers failed to find them.
Today, the interior reflects a history of power and privilege. In the throne room, a painting immortalizes Odeon Colonna, who became Pope Martin V in 1417 and made the palace the papal residence for a decade. The frescoed ceiling of the Great Hall depicts the exploits of another Colonna ancestor, Commander Marcantonio, who won a 16th-century naval battle that proved a turning point for the future of Europe.
“We can say that the Colonna cannot exist without Rome, but Rome also cannot exist without the Colonna,” Patrizia Piergiovanni, director of the palace’s galleries, said in an interior courtyard filled with orange trees. “Being from one of the noble families, he has contributed a lot.”
With the blessing of Princess Isabella, the Great Hall, with its masterpieces among the marble columns and dazzling chandeliers, became the set for the final scene of the 1952 classic “Roman Holiday.” Playing the role of a lovely princess herself, Audrey Hepburn Addressed the foreign press corps and asked a question: Which city did he enjoy most on his extended European tour? After some diplomatic hesitation she stopped.
“Rome,” she said firmly. “By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here as long as I live.”