Palazzo Barberini Tickets

The Palazzo Barberini (1625-33) was built by Carlo Maderno with the help of Borromini and completed by Bernini for the powerful Barberini family. Part of the family collection is still housed here but this, along with the building and the rest of the contents, now belongs to the state.

The palace’s most important room is the Gran Salone whose centre-piece is Pietro da Cortona’s ceiling painting The Allegory of Divine Providence (1638-9), which celebrates the virtues of Pope Urban VIII for whom it was painted. Italian painting of the 13th to 16th centuries is well represented, with works by Fra Angelico, Perugino, Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Lotto and Andrea del Sarto. Most famous of all is Raphael’s La Fomarina (thought to be a portrait of his mistress). There are also works by Bronzino, Caravaggio and Canaletto and a portrait of England’s King Henry VIII by Holbein.

The Palazzo Corsini, located across Rome in Trastevere, was originally built in the 15th century for Cardinal Riario and rebuilt in the 18th century for Cardinal Corsini by Ferdinando Fuga. The part of the National Gallery housed here includes paintings by Rubens, Murillo, Brueghel, Caravaggio and Guido Reni, together with a rare portrait of Bernini by Baciccia and 17th- and 18th-century regional Italian art.