The Palazzo Poli is a

palace A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, that was altered in the 18th century to form the backdrop to the

Trevi Fountain The Trevi Fountain ( it, Fontana di Trevi) is an 18th-century fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Giuseppe Pannini and several others. Standing high and wide, it is the larg ...

History

In 1566, Lelio dell'Anguillara, Duke of Ceri, purchased the Palazzo Del Monte. He commissionsed the Palazzo Ceri, in honor of himself, and hired the architect Martino Longhi the Elder. In 1591, Martino Longhi the Elder died and the architect Ottaviano Masscerino was hired to finish the original project. The Borromeo family inherited Palazzo Ceri and completed multiple renovations and extensions. Eventually, in 1678, the palace was for sale. Purchased by Lucrezia Colonna, who was married to the Duke of Poli, Giuseppe Lotario Conti. Here, the palace changed names again to how it is known today, Palazzo Conti di Poli, or Palazzo Poli. The Conti family was responsible for many more extensions, including purchasing and incorporating of many adjacent buildings which formed the Piazza di Trevi. The son of Giuseppe Lotario, Duke Stefano Conti, completed these renovations, including demolishing the central portion of the building, before 1730 to allow for the building of the Trevi Fountain. The new Baroque style south facade of the building was commissioned by Nicola Salvi in 1731. He hired the architect, Luigi Vanvitelli. As a setting for the fountain,

Luigi Vanvitelli Luigi Vanvitelli (; 12 May 1700 – 1 March 1773), known in Dutch as (), was an Italian architect and painter. The most prominent 18th-century architect of Italy, he practised a sober classicising academic Late Baroque style that made an eas ...

gave the building a new monumental facade that contains the

giant order In classical architecture, a giant order, also known as colossal order, is an order whose columns or pilasters span two (or more) storeys. At the same time, smaller orders may feature in arcades or window and door framings within the storeys th ...

of Corinthian pilasters linking the two main storeys of the palace.

In popular culture

In the 1830s, Princess

Zinaida Volkonskaya Princess Zinaida Aleksandrovna Volkonskaya (Зинаида Александровна Волконская; 14 December 1792 – 24 January 1862), was a Russian writer, poet, singer, composer, salonist and lady in waiting. She was an important ...

threw lavish parties in this palace.

Museum

Maria Cristina Misiti, director of the National Institute of Graphics, gave the idea to turn the building into a museum to help visitors learn more about the history of Rome and its inhabitants. The Palazzo Poli houses a collection of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

plates dated from the sixteenth century to the present. The Palazzo also houses the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica.

References

External links

Poli __NOTOC__ Poli can refer to: Food * ''Puran Poli'', a poli made up of wheat flour and puran (sweet cooked gram paste) * A Marathi name for ''chapati'', a bread made up of wheat flour Organisations * FC Timişoara Romanian first league football c ...

Rome R. II Trevi Luigi Vanvitelli buildings Baroque architecture in Rome {{Italy-palace-stub