THE HISTORY OF THE PALACE

The Pamphilian project in Valmontone: a microcosm on the outskirts of Rome

The cycle of frescoes on the piano nobile was carried out between 1658 and 1661 and is considered to be among the most significant of mid-17th-century Roman painting. The decoration is focused on the vaults, with the exception of the Prince’s Hall where it covers the entire wall surface.

The iconographic plan was conceived with the intention of recreating a Microcosm, namely, a representation of the world on a small scale, in this residence outside the city.

With the help of his erudite advisors, the themes chosen by the learned prince were those traditionally adopted in the decoration of Renaissance residences in order to illustrate the vastness of the world as it was known at the time within a confined space.

The allegories of the Four Elements and the Four Continents were reproduced in the rooms of the piano nobile, often drawing on the extraordinary repertoire published for the first time in 1593 by Cesare Ripa in his highly successful volume Iconology. This was a manual used by artists to depict personifications of abstract concepts in such a way as to make them comprehensible to all by means of a codified ‘language’.

For the execution of the frescoes, Camillo turned to Gaspard Dughet, Guglielmo Cortese, Francesco Cozza, Giambattista Tassi, Mattia Preti and Pierfrancesco Mola. The presence of the artists is documented between 1658 and 1659, with Preti arriving in 1661 after the cycle was already completed.

A final aspect should be added to the picture of this Pamphilian project to help us better know the figure of Camillo, a refined patron and an exuberant collector. During the construction of the palace, he began to have a number of paintings in his collection transferred from Rome, thus giving rise to a new collection that within a short time increased to a total of over four hundred pieces in the first decade of the 18th century. Thus, a collection of paintings took shape in which landscapes, still lifes, hunting scenes, portraits and sacred paintings appeared. This nucleus of the family collection was formed between 1659 and 1748, which was the year of the last inventory, bringing the history of this extraordinary picture gallery to a close. We must imagine the entire palace, and in particular the piano nobile where we are standing, richly furnished, with the walls covered with cloth hangings, corami (worked and printed leather) and tapestries.

Some of the works once housed in the palace at Valmontone are now exhibited at the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Via del Corso in Rome. Among the most famous of these are Domenichino’s Landscape with Ford, the series of portraits of Ancient Philosphers, the Credenziere of Johannes Hermans and various paintings by Pasquale Chiesa.