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Palazzo dei Penitenzieri (Palazzo della Rovere)

Historic site · Borgo, Italy

A palace on via della Conciliazione, begun about 1480 for cardinal Domenico Della Rovere. It is owned by the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, which has its Grand Magisterium there.

History

Italian Wikipedia gives Baccio Pontelli as a possible architect and records that the palace took its later name under Alexander VII, who moved the penitenzieri confessors into it. The façade is modelled on Palazzo Venezia and carries a corner tower; the central courtyard is on two levels, the upper one kept as a walled garden. A sixteenth-century frescoed gallery runs through the left wing at piano nobile, and the salone in the right wing holds Pinturicchio's Soffitto dei Semidei of 1490; the same article describes the right wing as visitable on request to the Order. In the palace's courtyard, remains identified as the Teatro di Nerone — Nero's private theatre, previously known only from literary sources — were excavated between 2020 and 2023 and announced in 2023, with the Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma as scientific authority. Italian Wikipedia states that the ruins are to be reburied once catalogued, so this guide makes no suggestion that they can be seen.

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