Palazzo Montecitorio

Roma Capitale records that the palace was begun in 1653, when Innocent X commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build a residence for the Ludovisi, and that work stopped in 1655 at the pope's death for want of funds. It resumed over thirty years later under Innocent XII, with Carlo Fontana modifying Bernini's design while keeping its convex façade and adding the campanile a vela. Innocent XII made it the seat of the Curia Innocenziana, the papal tribunals, inaugurated in 1696; it afterwards housed the Governatorato di Roma and the police directorate. Early in the twentieth century Ernesto Basile built a new block behind the old one, reduced the courtyard, demolished the rear wings and built the floreale front on Piazza del Parlamento, containing the hemicycle chamber lit by Giovanni Beltrami's stained-glass Velario over Giulio Aristide Sartorio's allegorical frieze on the history of the Italian people. The corridor beside the chamber is called the Transatlantico, and the Sala della Lupa is tied to the referendum of 2 June 1946. The great bell, which now rings only on the election of the President of the Republic, once signalled the start of audiences.