PRINCE GIOVANNI BATTISTA PAMPHILJ (1648–1709) and the DISPLAY of ART in the PALAZZO AL COLLEGIO ROMANO, ROME Stephanie C. Leon
PRINCE GIOVANNI BATTISTA PAMPHILJ (1648–1709) AND THE DISPLAY OF ART IN THE PALAZZO AL COLLEGIO ROMANO, ROME Stephanie C. Leone, Boston College pon the death of his father Camillo in July 1666, Giovanni Battista Pamphilj’s legal status Uchanged dramatically: the eighteen-year-old prince became the primogenito of his wealthy and powerful family. With his inheritance came responsibilities, including the oversight of his father’s unfinished artistic projects at Sant’Agnese in Agone, Sant’Agostino, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, the Collegio Innocenziano, and the Palazzo al Collegio Romano. The latter was the new wing, begun in 1659, which had been added to the Palazzo Aldobrandini al Corso (fig. 1), owned by his mother, Princess Olimpia Aldobrandini (1622–1681). After Olimpia, the sole heir to the great Aldrobrandini fortune, married Camillo Pamphilj in 1647, the couple moved into her palace rather than his, the Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona. The architect Antonio Del Grande designed Camillo’s new wing as a trapezoidal block to the northwest of the Aldobrandini property, between the Piazza al Col- legio Romano and the large courtyard (figs. 2, 3). Today, this unified palace is known as the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj al Corso. Under Camillo, construction was completed and the interior decoration was begun, but the task of outfitting the new rooms fell to Giovanni Battista.1 In this article—drawing on the information provided by two inventories of the palace’s con- tents, dating from ca. 1680 and 1709, respectively—I shall analyze and attempt to reconstruct the furnishings in Prince Pamphilj’s noble, winter, and mezzanine apartments.
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