FAR FROM the Vatican crowds, Galleria Colonna is a delightful six-room gallery that opens its doors only on Saturday mornings. It is worth visiting just for Annibale Carracci's spectacular Il Mangiafagioli.
Otherwise the family picture gallery houses works by Poussin, Guido Reni, Veronese, Jan Bruegel the Elder and Guercino. There are family portraits, superb pieces of antique furniture and, in the Throne Room, a chair turned to the wall for use by the pope, should he decide to pop in.
The building itself is an extravagant work of art in its own right, completed in 1703 by Prince Filippo II of Colonna. You might even recognise it from the Roman Holidayscene in which Audrey Hepburn gives a press conference and says goodbye to Gregory Peck.
The Colonnas were one of Rome’s grandest families. Illustrious members include a saint, an excommunicated cardinal, a pope and the poet Vittoria Colonna, consort of Michelangelo.
The staircase that leads down to the Great Hall still holds a cannonball that landed there during the French siege of Rome in 1849. This sumptuously baroque hall of mirrors is thought to be the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who took his inspiration from a 1665 visit to Versailles.
The ceiling frescoes painted by Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi in 1675 glorify Marcantonio, the family scion, who led the papal fleet to victory against the Ottoman Turks in the 1571 naval battle of Lepanto. The room is a riot of Murano chandeliers, marble mouldings, gilded standards and frolicking cherubs.
The unassuming entrance is on Via della Pilotta, an elegant street spanned by a series of arches that connect the palazzo with its private gardens on Quirinal Hill.
Galleria Colonna, Piazza SS, Apostoli 66, galleriacolonna.it
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