Louis Navarrete Decoration: The Palazzo Altemps

Everything is something in Rome. It's easy to be a lazy tourist, every ditch, every crumbling wall is historic. You can easily fall in with the swarms at the Trevi Fountain watching water run out of a building or maybe the Spanish Steps is more your style, watching water drip out of poor, hot tired tourists as they attempt to crawl up to Santa Maria del Monte at the top, or there's always the Vatican with it's endless halls filled with art and people...but a little off the beaten tack there are wonderful museums, with first rate art and very few people. Around the corner from the Mario Praz is the Palazzo Altemps which houses the Ludovisi Collection.

The elegant 15th c building designed by Melozzo da Fiori was built for one Girolamo Riaro who was a relative of Sixtus IV.

One of the oldest frescos is in the Room of the Sideboard from 1477 and shows wedding presents given to Girolamo and Caterina Sforza. The Riaro family went into decline after the death of Sixtus IV and the Palazzo was sold to Cardinal Solderini of Voltera, who further refined the building with the talents of Antonio Sangallo the Elder and Baldassarre Peruzzi. The Cardinal fell on hard times and the Palazzo again changed hands in 1568 to the nephew of Pope Pius IV, Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps who commissioned Martino Longhi to improve the building. He is responsible for the belvedere and the fine library as well as the beginning of sculpture collection. As things go, being a second son meant the priesthood, but poor Marco didn't let that stop him from having a son and in 1586 he was executed for adultery by Sixtus V.

The Altemps Family continued to live in the building until the 19th c. when the Palazzo became the property of the Church. It was given to the State in 1982 and after a 15 year restoration it became a part of the National Museums.