Palazzo Farnese
The Farnese family palace is the grandest Renaissance palace in Rome. Antonio da Sangallo began it as a cardinal’s palace, and when the cardinal became pope Michelangelo took over. His powerful cornice crowns a calm and regular façade.
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese bought a large plot near the Campo de’ Fiori and in 1517 engaged Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to build a palace. When the cardinal was elected pope as Paul III in 1534, the plans grew larger. After Sangallo’s death in 1546 Michelangelo took over. Among other things he raised the top storey, designed the massive cornice and the central window above the door and shaped the top storey of the courtyard. The work was continued by Vignola and completed by Giacomo della Porta, who built the loggia facing the Tiber. The palace was finished in 1589.
The façade on the square is three storeys high and unusually regular, with rows of windows with alternating pediments. Only the corners and the door are marked by heavy rustication. Michelangelo’s cornice crowns the building, and its size is calculated to be seen from the square. The door leads through a columned vestibule into a square courtyard, where the storeys have orders on the model of the Colosseum: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. On the second floor Annibale Carracci and his workshop painted the gallery ceiling in 1597–1601 with the loves of the gods, one of the most important frescoes of the Baroque.
The Farnese inheritance passed to the Spanish Bourbons in Naples, and the palace was later leased to France. Since 1874 it has been the French Embassy in Rome. The French state bought the palace in 1911 but sold it to Italy in 1936, which leases it to France on a long lease. The palace can be visited on guided tours. The square in front has two granite basins from the Baths of Caracalla used as fountains. Palazzo Farnese became a model for palaces and clubhouses far beyond Italy, not least in 19th-century London, where the Reform Club was built in its spirit.