Private Art in Public

Rome's Galleria Doria-Pamphilj: A princely private collection

This private art collection of the Doria Pamhilj (in Roman dialect, a final "j" is pronounced like an "i") princes is now open to the public, the layout preserved and paintings displayed more or less as they were in the 19th century. Since the works are jumbled together like a giant jigsaw puzzle on the dimly lit walls, you need to use the list of artists and titles they hand out at the entrance to match to the numbers on the works themselves.

Among masterworks by Tintoretto, Correggio, Annibale and Lodovico Carracci, Bellini, Parmigianino, Jan and Pieter Brueghel the elders, and Rubens, you'll find two stellar paintings by Caravaggio, Mary Magdalen and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, as well as a copy he made of his Young St. John the Baptist now in the Capitoline Museums. Also here are Titian's Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist, and Bernini's Bust of Innocent X, whose sister-in-law started this collection.

Extra bonus prize: The princely Doria Pamphilj family (that final "j"—common in Roman dialect—is pronounced like an "i") still lives in the palazzo...and so can you! One of the best moderately priced hotels in Rome—the Hotel Coronet—is installed in another wing of palazzo not curently being used by the princes.

Piazza del Collegio Romano 1A (off Via del Corso near Piazza Venezia).
tel. 06-679-7323, www.doriapamphilj.it
Closed Thursdays and in August

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