L’aménagement et le décor de la galerie Doria Pamphilj à Rome

The quadrangular gallery of the Doria Pamphilj Palace was built between 1731 and 1734, as part of an overall modernization programme, decided by Camillo Pamphilj the Younger. From the sixteenth century until the project of the architect Gabriele Valvassori, the courtyard had remained unfinished and had a single loggia on the first floor of the south side. Valvassori built loggias on the three other sides, which were then closed thus creating on the first floor a quadrangular gallery, whose typology is unique in Rome. None of the wings on the piano noble aimed at unity in style, since each has its own decoration, but rather created a “museum of styles”. In particular, the wing on the Corso, a true “hall of mirrors”, was used as a glorification space for the Pamphilj family. Aureliano Milani painted its vault with mythological frescoes illustrating the fall of the Titans and Hercules’ story. The three other wings, decorated by Genesio Del Barba and Filippo Sciugatrosce with Chinese and grotesque patterns, were designed as neutral exhibition spaces. Numerous studios have been written about the gallery Doria Pamphilj. Most of them are dedicated to the magnificent collection, while this paper intends to focus on the laying out out of the quadrangular gallery and the decoration of the East wing called “galleria degli specchi”