Palazzo Braschi - The Museum Of Rome

From the Etruscan to the Contemporary Art, Rome is very rich in museums. But, one of them, called “ The Museum of Rome“, in the splendid Palazzo Braschi, looking out on the jewel of baroque, the Piazza Navona, is a very special one that helps, perhaps more that any other, to understand the real soul of Rome. It is the right moment to visit it: a few weeks ago, the museum reopened all his 3 floors after a long restoring and restyling work.

Palazzo Braschi - Piazza Navona Entrance

Palazzo Braschi, with his entrance on the small Piazza di San Pantaleo and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, is a magnificent example of the neo-classical style. It was constructed between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th.  First, by the Pope Pius VI, for his nephew,  Luigi Braschi. And that was the last construction of a Pope for his family, interrupted by the French Occupation of Napoleon. After a few years and the exile of the Pope in France, the construction went on. The monumental stairs and the chapel on the first floor are attributed to the famous neo-classical architect Giuseppe Valadier (that was Italian in spite of his French name!)

Piazza Navona - Rome

In 1871, when Rome became the capital of Italy, the Braschi family sold the palace to the State and the palace housed the ministry of Interior. During the Fascism, it was used for some exhibitions and other events by the Mussolini’s regime and the first  “Museum of Rome” was opened (in an another place, rating the “Boccca della Verità”) in 1930 to underline the link between the ancient Rome and the Fascism.
After the war, 300 homeless families used to live in Palazzo Brachi until 1949, damaging unfortunately a part of the beautiful mural and ceiling fresco. In 1952, the “Museum of Rome” was transferred in the palazzo Braschi . It closed on 1987 to be restored, opened again in the 2002 and had a new restyling, floor by floor, these last years.

The Palazzo During Fascism

The museum is made by a suite of huge rooms, beautifully decorated by gracious neo-classical grotesque and other mural paintings, with a rich collection of sculptures, paintings, old photographs, furniture etc…on a thematic base:  Portraits of the governors (almost of the eighteenth century), landscapes (almost seventeenth but also twentieth century), celebrations and games, photographs of destructions (of the narrow streets of medieval Rome) and constructions (of a modern city).
 
The paintings, even those of the end of the nineteenth century, show us how Rome was a small town with extraordinary monuments, churches and palaces, in the middle of the countryside. And this, not such a long time ago!

The Palace Staircase

We discover how the Romans always loved “circenses” and celebrations. And also, that already at the beginning of the 19th century, Rome attracted many visitors from abroad. And so, beside Canova’s sculptors and Ipolitto Caffi’s landscapes, there is a delicious portrait of a little girl, miss Catherine Bishop, of Joshua Reynolds.

Catherine Bishop, - Joshua Reynolds

And that is not all you can find at the Palazzo Braschi in these days.  On the first floor, there is an exhibition opened until the 7 of May: “Artemisia Gentileschi e il suo tempo”, “Artemisia and her time”, that of the great Caravaggio to whom Artemisia, a woman painter (a rarity in that time!), is often compared. 
 
Piazza di San Pantaleo
Opened every day except Monday from 10h to 19h.

Giaele e Sisara - Artemisia Gentileschi