Palazzo Giustiniani

Roma Capitale dates the core to 1585, probably by Giovanni Fontana for Monsignor Francesco Vento, and records its purchase in 1590 by the Giustiniani, who had come to Rome from Chios after the Turkish reconquest. The palace was enlarged from 1650, in part to designs by Borromini, and its staircase and courtyard were built into the early eighteenth century, absorbing buildings as far as Piazza della Rotonda. It held the collection of sculpture and painting formed by Vincenzo Giustiniani, 1564 to 1637, which included Caravaggio, Raphael, Giorgione, Titian and Andrea del Sarto and was dispersed between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. The Grande Oriente d'Italia had its seat here from 1898; the Italian State bought the building in 1943. An underground gallery built in 1938 links it to Palazzo Madama.