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Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Altemps

Museum · Ponte, Italy

One of the four sites of the Museo Nazionale Romano, in a Renaissance palace whose main entrance Roma Capitale places on via di Sant'Apollinare. Roma Capitale gives the hours as Tuesday to Sunday 09.30 to 19.00, last admission 18.00, closed Monday, and the telephone number 06 684851. The Boncompagni Ludovisi collection shown here comprised about 450 sculptures, of which the State acquired 104; fifteen of Cardinal Altemps's original 120 survive, four of them under the north portico. The palace chapel of Sant'Aniceto held the relics of Pope Anicetus, 155 to 166, found in the catacombs of San Callisto and granted by Clement VIII in 1603. A small theatre named for Goldoni is inside the palace.

History

Roma Capitale records that the palace was raised in 1477 for Girolamo Riario, duke of Imola and nephew of Sixtus IV, over earlier medieval buildings, and that Melozzo da Forli, Luca Pacioli and perhaps Leon Battista Alberti took part in its construction. It was sold in 1511 to Cardinal Francesco Soderini and later became Cardinal Innocenzo Cybo's residence. Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps bought it in 1568 and had Martino Longhi the Elder remodel it between 1577 and 1595, including the altana toward piazza Sant'Apollinare under four pyramidal spires and a dome topped by the Altemps rampant ram. Giacomo Della Porta, Flaminio Ponzio, Tommaso Schiratti, Girolamo Rainaldi and Onorio Longhi also worked there. In 1887 the palace became property of the Holy See and housed the Pontifical Spanish College; the Italian State bought it in 1982.

Visit

Via di Sant'Apollinare, 46, 00186 Roma RM

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