View source for Palazzo Spada

{{for|the town hall in Terni|Palazzo Spada (Terni)}}
{{Infobox building
|name=Palazzo Spada
|image=Palazzo Spada - Rome, Italy - DSC09752.jpg
|caption=Facade of the Palazzo Spada.
|location=Piazza di Capo Ferro #13, [[Rome]], [[Italy]]
|coordinates={{coord|41|53|38.5|N|12|28|18.5|E|type:landmark|display=it}}
|image_size=270
|mapframe-frame-width=270
|mapframe=yes
|mapframe-caption=Click on the map for a fullscreen view
|mapframe-zoom=13
|mapframe-marker=monument
|mapframe-wikidata=yes
}}

The '''Palazzo Spada''' is a palace located on Piazza di Capo Ferro #13 in the [[rioni of Rome|rione]] [[Regola (rione of Rome)|Regola]] of [[Rome]], Italy. Standing very close to the [[Palazzo Farnese]], it has a garden facing towards the [[Tiber]] river. 

The palace accommodates a large art collection, the [[Galleria Spada]]. The collection was originally assembled by Cardinal [[Bernardino Spada]] in the 17th century, and by his brother Virgilio Spada, and added to by his grandnephew Cardinal [[Fabrizio Spada]],

==History==
[[Image:Forced perspective gallery by Francesco Borromini.jpg|thumb|[[Forced perspective]] gallery by Francesco Borromini. The corridor is much shorter, and the sculpture much smaller, than they appear.]]
[[File:Borromini Perspectival Corridor, Opposing View.png|thumb|upright|View through Borromini's gallery to the courtyard. The illusory effect is reversed, and the viewer becomes like a giant.]]
In 1540, the palace was commissioned by Cardinal [[Girolamo Capodiferro]], and utilized as an architect Bartolomeo Baronino of [[Casale Monferrato]], while [[Giulio Mazzoni]] and a team provided lavish external and internal stucco-work. 

The palace was briefly owned by the Mignanelli family, until in 1632, the palace was purchased by Cardinal Spada, who commissioned modifications from [[Francesco Borromini]]. The [[Baroque]] architect Borromini who created a masterpiece of [[forced perspective]] optical illusion in the arcaded courtyard, in which diminishing rows of columns and a rising floor create the visual illusion of a gallery 37 meters long (it is 8 meters) with a life-size sculpture at the end of the vista, in daylight beyond: the sculpture is 60&nbsp;cm high. Borromini was aided in his perspective trick by a mathematician.

The [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] [[stucco]] sculptural decor of the palazzo's front and its courtyard façades feature sculptures crowded into niches and fruit and flower swags, grotesques and vignettes of symbolic devices (''impresi'') in bas-relief among the small framed windows of a [[Mezzanine (architecture)|mezzanine]], the richest ''[[Cinquecento]]'' façades in Rome.
[[Image:Borromini spada.jpg|thumb|left|Facade details.]]
The colossal sculpture of [[Pompey the Great]], erroneously believed to be the very one at whose feet [[Julius Caesar]] fell, was discovered under the party wall of two Roman houses in 1552: it was to be decapitated to satisfy the claims of both parties, which appalled Cardinal Capodiferro so, that he interceded on the sculpture's behalf with [[Pope Julius III]], who purchased it and then gave it to the Cardinal.

==Gallery==
The palazzo hosts the [[Galleria Spada]], the Cardinal Spada's collection, which includes four galleries of 16th and 17th-century paintings by [[Andrea del Sarto]], [[Niccolò Tornioli]], [[Guido Reni]], [[Titian]], [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]], [[Guercino]], [[Peter Paul Rubens|Rubens]], [[Dürer]], [[Michelangelo Merisi|Caravaggio]],  [[Domenichino]],  [[Annibale Carracci|the Carracci]], [[Salvator Rosa]],  [[Parmigianino]], [[Francesco Solimena]], [[Michelangelo Cerquozzi]], [[Pietro Testa]], [[Giambattista Gaulli]], and [[Orazio Gentileschi|Orazio]] and [[Artemisia Gentileschi]], and has the additional interest of being hung in the 17th-century manner, frame-to-frame, with smaller pictures "skied" above larger ones.

==Public authority==
Palazzo Spada was purchased by the Italian State in 1927 and today houses the [[Italian Council of State]], which meets in its richly frescoed and stuccoed rooms.

==External links==
*[http://www.galleriaspada.beniculturali.it/ Official website]
*[https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.893988,12.471532&spn=0.002329,0.004505&t=k&hl=en Aerial photo] - The Farnese is the large square palace at the left, while one block along the same street to the south-west is the smaller Palazzo Spada with its gardens facing the Tiber.
*[http://digilander.libero.it/vvegaz/comenius/menu1/im2e.htm ''Dido's Death'', Guercino], commissioned from Guercino by Cardinal Spada, 1631, on behalf of [[Marie de Medici]]
*[http://www.webvisionitaly.com/category.php?id=221&ref_genre=8&ref_item=485 Video of Palazzo Spada]
*[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/13424 ''Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi''], a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Palazzo Spada (see index)

{{commons-inline}}
{{Sequence
| prev = [[Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome]]
| list = Landmarks of Rome
| curr = Palazzo Spada
| next = [[Palazzo Valentini]]
}}
<!-- "Palazzo Valentini" as the next landmark and "Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome" as the previous one are taken from the navbox "Landmarks of Rome" that is placed below. A navbox is invisible in mobile view. The addition enables mobile users to click at least the next landmark or the previous one. -->

{{Monuments of Rome}}
{{Rome museums}}
{{Francesco Borromini}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Houses completed in 1540]]
[[Category:Francesco Borromini buildings]]
[[Category:Palaces in Rome|Spada]]
[[Category:Art museums and galleries in Rome]]
[[Category:Former private collections in Italy]]
[[Category:Galleria Spada]]
[[Category:Rome R. VII Regola]]