Palazzo Spada was built in 1540 for cardinal Girolamo Capodiferro and then acquired in 1632 by cardinal Bernardino Spada who commissioned its beautification to Francesco Borromini.
Nowadays it hosts the State Council and the Spada Gallery, in which it is possible to find Spada’s personal private collection of ancient paintings, along with Borromini’s Perspective Gallery in the courtyard. In its rooms we can also find Pompey’s colossal statue, believed to be the one whose feet Julius Caesar fell at, discovered in 1552.
The palace’s facade is the richest of the Roman 16th century and the nine windows on the first floor represent Fabius Maximus, Numa, Romulus, Trajan, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus.
Thanks to Borromini’s restoration we can today admire the famous Perspective Gallery, which hides an illusion: by looking at it you may think it’s 35m long, but it’s actually just 8,82m!
What brings the illusion to life is the fact that both the ceiling and the mosaic floor converge at the same getaway point. In the past, there was also a fake plant motif painted in the back wall to accentuate the perspective, but now there’s a cast of a Roman era soldier’s statue in its place.
Borromini, who built the Gallery in just a year with the help of his father, connected the illusion of perspective to the moral significance of deception and illusion of earthly greatness.
You can discover with us this masterpiece in one of our Private Tours of Rome.
