Palazzo Farnese

Palazzo Farnese is primarily the French Embassy in Italy, as it has been since 1874. France bought the palace in 1911, sold it to the Italian state in 1936 and stayed on under a 99-year lease. Behind the diplomatic front is one of the great painted rooms of Rome, which visitors can see on guided tours booked in advance.

The palace was begun in the 1510s for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, to designs by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. When the cardinal became Pope Paul III in 1534 the plans grew, and after Sangallo's death in 1546 Michelangelo took over. His are the heavy cornice crowning the front on Piazza Farnese, the window above the main door and the top storey of the courtyard. Giacomo della Porta, Michelangelo's successor on several Roman projects, finished the building in 1589.

The room people come for is the gallery on the main floor. Between 1597 and 1601 Annibale Carracci, the Bolognese painter, worked with his brother Agostino on its vault, the Loves of the Gods, a crowd of mythological couples set among painted statues and painted picture frames. His young assistants worked on the walls, and over one door his pupil Domenichino painted a girl with a unicorn resting in her lap, an old sign of chastity that the Farnese used as an emblem for two generations. The tour also takes in the courtyard, the garden and the Hall of Hercules.