Palazzo Quirinale

“ They are the public palace, the cathedral, and the house of S. Catherine. The civil life, the arts, and 43 the religious tendencies of Italy during the ascendency of mediæval ideas, are strongly set before us here. High above every other building in the town soars the straight brick tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, the house of the republic, the hearth of civil life within the State. It guards an irregular Gothic building in which the old government of Siena used to be assembled, but which has now for a long time been converted into prisons, courts of law, and showrooms. ”

“ It is regularly built, with many squares and broad streets; is the seat of important trade for northern Italy; has varied manufactures; and is rapidly growing. It contains a university, cathedral, castle (Palazzo Madama) , royal palace (with the royal armory and library) , Palazzo Carignano (former seat of Parliament, now containing collections in natural history) , palace of the Academy of Sciences (with a museum of antiquities and picture-gallery) , monument of Cavour, etc. Victor Emmanuel and Cavour were born there. ”

“ Yet if the statue could wake to life, the man would not know the familiar place, which has been wholly transformed since his days. The principal ornament of the square is the Palazzo del Consiglio, a beautiful example of cinque-cento architecture, its exuberant decoration still subordinate to the harmony and proportion of the general design. This has been converted into a pantheon for the celebrated men of Verona, whose statues surmount the building, and among whom we recognize many old acquaintances—Cornelius Nepos, Catullus, Pliny the Younger and others of later date and less renown. ”

“ Beautiful circular church, cupola silvery, ribbed outside, at Ariccia, opposite Palazzo Chigi; a great grim palace, stained grey with damp and time, flanked by four sorts of towers; windows scarce. This solemn type of sixteenth-century White Devil of Italy palace or villa recurs in this neighbourhood; places to keep their secrets; some apparently on the very border of the Campagna, where vines and olives end. ”

“ Understanding the curiosity the four felt to see their premises, they did the honors of their place, with a minuteness as politely considerate towards the strangers as it was gratifying to the interest felt by them.
First the visitors were led by the bachelor brothers to see the huge old mansion, which they called the Palazzo. Let no one who has seen an ordinary Genoese palace, magnificent with gilding, enriched by priceless pictures, supplied with choice books, and adorned with gorgeous furniture, figure to himself any such combination in the palazzo in question. ”

“ Most of the streets of Turin converge into the Piazza di Castello, in the centre of which stands the Palazzo Madama, a weird-looking, half-ruined building overgrown with ivy, with a gloomy look about its desolate towers. It is a fine and picturesque old place, especially on a moonlight night—a unique relic of the Middle Ages. Near it are the Royal Palace and the Duomo. The former is not unlike a barrack externally; but it contains a noble staircase and fine banqueting and reception rooms, the ceiling and floors being especially worthy of admiration. ”

“ The rebuilding of the Palazzo del Parlamento is only second to the enormous monument of Victor Emanuel II. The majority of the buildings erected by individuals and corporations since 1870 present no original or characteristic features, and the best of them are copies or imitations of well-known models. The Cassa del Risparmio, in the Corso, reproduces a Florentine palace; the Palazzo Negroni, near the Piazza Nicotia, is modelled on the Cancelleria and the Palazzo Giraud ”

“ The palace is large and handsome; the favourite apartments of the duchess, who is very pious, communicating with the convent, and opening on a private corridor, by which she can reach the adjacent church unobserved. The tribune she occupies is so arranged as almost to conceal her presence, glazed and heavily barred like a convent grate. The duke’s theatre (for he is extremely fond of theatricals) joins another part of the Palazzo, and his splendid stables are opposite and on the garden side. ”

“ A semicircle or truncated ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, with arches opening beneath them, through which streets converge hitherward. One side of the piazza is a straight line, and is occupied by the Palazzo Publico, which is a most noble and impressive Gothic structure. It has not the mass of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, but is more striking. It has a long battlemented front, the central part of which rises eminent above the rest, in a great square bulk, which is likewise crowned with battlements. ”

“ In order to gauge the talent with which Brunelleschi turned to signal advantage what in other hands would have been a cause of failure, one need only imagine any one of the Florentine palaces, with the exception of the Palazzo Vecchio, in the place of the Pitti palace, to realize what a miserably meagre impression they would make as the crowning edifice on the summit of the steep hill. ”

“ A nude bronze statue of the god by Giovanni da Bologna stands eight feet high, in a somewhat repellent attitude, above the pedestal and basin. It is always the centre of a lounging crowd which throngs the square throughout the day. On the west side of the Piazza is the Palazzo Pubblico, with a façade that still retains, despite restoration, traces of eight elegant pointed windows. A figure of the Virgin in terra-cotta, once gilded, stands under a good canopy high up on the empty space of the great wall of the façade. ”

“ Above are Dante, Petraca, Boccaccio, Giovanni della Casa, and Luigi Alamanni. In the corridor, “as being a more honourable place,” observes Filippo, were the Archbishop S. Antonino, S. Filippo Neri, Maestro Luigi Marsili, Lorenzo il Magnifico and Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, and a bust of Baccio Valori himself—the only one left. From the busts on the façade the palace is generally known in Florence as the Palazzo de’ Visacci, or of the Ugly Faces.
Alessandro, the last of the Valori, died in 1687, and his nephew, Senator Luigi Guicciardini, inherited the palace. ”

“ It is said the Popes prepared this residence because the air was so fresh, and the neighbourhood so healthy. While the King is in Rome the Quirinal palace is not open to visitors. The gardens are on an extensive scale. Within the palace are sculpture, museums, library, paintings by Raphael, Michael Angelo and Luigi Serra. Some of the subjects are simply masterpieces. We went from the Quirinal to the Baths of Titus, erected by the Emperor of that name, it is said upon the same place where once stood the house of Nero. ”

“ In the upper part is a range of semicircular-headed windows, and then a flat ceiling with square coffers. The worst part of this composition is in the space between the capitals of the columns, and the cornice, which is altogether ill managed. At the end is a semicircular tribune enriched with mosaics.
The principal front of the Palazzo di Venezia is towards the Piazza. It has an air of solid massive grandeur and of defence, not ill-suited to each other, but there is no other merit. ”

“ Arnolfo died when he had built his Palazzo in rugged strength, as it still stands, with walls like living rock and heavy Tuscan cornices—tho it was reserved to the other masters to put upon it the wonderful crown of its appropriate tower—and just as the round apse of the cathedral approached completion; a hard fate for a great builder to leave such noble work behind him half done, yet the most common of all fates. ”

“ The interior of this beautiful Palace we have already described its architecture in Venetian Gothic, and Sansovino's hand is to be traced in many of its details. It well deserves the reputation that it enjoys of being one of the noblest hotels in the world—indeed its artistic beauties, and its historic associations, can only be equalled by its unique and romantic position. ”

“ The Palazzo Publico is a building of two stages in height, the lower entirely open with pointed arches resting on columns, and the upper presenting on its principal front a large balconied window, or Ringhiera, in the centre, and smaller windows on each side of it, and at the ends. The cornice and roof are modern, otherwise the whole design is intact, and exactly in the state in which its architect left it. ”

“ Belonging to the Mahommedan style are the palaces of the Alhambra and the Alcazar in Spain. Of I the Renaissance period, nimierous palaces exist in every country, the more important examples in Italy being those of the Vatican, the Quirinal and the Cancellaria, in Rome; the Caprarola near Rome; the palace of Caserta near Naples; the Pitti at Florence; the Palazzo del Te at Mantua; the court and eastern portion of the ducal palace of Venice, and the numerous examples of the Grand Canal ”

“ Many important ceiling decorations were painted by Raffaelle’s pupils, Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga and Giovanni da Udine, in the palaces at Mantua, the Villa Madama, some in Venice and Genoa, others in the Vatican and in the Castel Angelo, at Rome, etc. There is also the ceiling of elaborate panelling, in which figure subjects alternate with arabesques in the Chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, painted by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. ”

“ Every day brought some entertainment more magnificent than that of the day before, and the Palazzo Pitti resounded with music and gaiety. In October arrived the Cardinal Aldobrandini, sent by the Pope to perform the marriage ceremony. Don Antonio de’ Medici met him some miles outside the city at the head of five hundred cavalry, and at the town gate he was received by the Grand Duke under a velvet baldaquin, who escorted him, walking on his left, to the palace. ”

“ The court and most of the interior were remodelled in the sixteenth century. At Sienna is a somewhat 266 similar structure in brick, the Palazzo Pubblico. At Pistoia the Podestà and the Communal Palace stand opposite each other; in both of these the courtyards still retain their original aspect. At Perugia, Bologna, and Viterbo are others of some importance; while in Lombardy, Bergamo, Como, Cremona, Piacenza and other towns possess smaller halls with open arcades below, of a more elegant and pleasing aspect. ”

“ In it is held an annual exhibition of modern works of art of every description. Admission, one lira; Sundays, fifty centesimi. It occupies a space of 22,030 square mètres—the permanent building being 5,280 square mètres; the Crystal Hall, 1,250 square mètres; the gardens, 5,000 square mètres; and the temporary galleries, 10,500 square mètres. The palace comprises two floors, and may be entered from the Via Nazionale, Via Genova, and Via del Quirinale. The main front is 25 mètres high and 60 long. Sixteen statues decorate the top of the façade, the work of Roman artists. ”

“ Many parts of the Palazzo Rufolo show the lovely fancy of the Saracen builders, but more than elsewhere it is displayed in the remnants of the courtyard, where one arcade is still intact of arches so delicate and graceful as make one wish that the same principles of building might have permeated all the country and transformed the palaces of other nobles also into dwellings as beautiful as the Palazzo Rufolo once was. From the court one passes to the terrace garden, which lies on the very brow of the mountain, commanding what is surely among the loveliest views of the whole world. ”

“ Such buildings as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, the Ducal Palace of Venice, and many others were the material manifestation of a state of municipal pride, and popular love of beauty and propriety in public monuments. Upon these buildings the best craftsmanship was lavished, while the dwellings of the most wealthy citizens were modest in scale, though often beautiful in design. ”

“ Thousands of young men, with compressed lip and moistened eye, lean against those marble pillars, lost in thought, and almost excuse even the demoniac and blood-thirsty mercilessness of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. These palaces are a perpetual stimulus and provocative to governmental aggression. There they stand, in all their gorgeousness, empty, swept, and garnished. They are resplendently beautiful. They are supplied with every convenience, every luxury. King and Emperor dwelt there. Why should not the President? Hence the palace becomes the home of the Republican President. ”

“ They have no special qualities except in slight variations of the external wall surface decoration, consisting of the applied orders on the several storeys. Among the best examples are the Palazzo Cataldi, formerly Palazzo Carega (1560) , in which there are no pilasters, but rusticated quoins at the angles and windows with moulded dressings and pediments. The entrance vestibules of the Durazzo-Pallavicini, Rosso (1558) and Balbi (1610) palaces are in each case their finest features. ”

“ Jacopo, incites the people to revolt, 171; is executed, 172; Giovanni, founds the Società Colombaia, 397. Peruzzi, account of the, 175; Arco de’, frescoed by Paolo Ucello, 176; Baldassare, architect and painter, 180; houses of the, assigned to distinguished guests, 179; Ridolfo, banished, 179; ruin of the, 176; Ubaldino, 180. Pisani, Andrea, enlarges the Palazzo Vecchio, 359. 408Pitti, Buonaccorso, chronicle of, 182; Luca, begins the Palazzo Pitti, 185; conspires against Piero de’ Medici, 186; Eleonora di Toledo buys the Palazzo Pitti, 187; marriages of Cosimo I.’s daughters in, 188–189 ”