Thanks to the collaboration between the Embassies of the Sovereign Order to the Holy See and to the Quirinale, it was possible to organize a special visit dedicated to Heads of Mission to the splendid premises of the Council of State and Galleria Spada.
The Ambassadors were able to visit the magnificent Palace, built in 1540 by Cardinal Giacomo Recanati Capodiferro, then purchased in 1632 by Cardinal Bernardino Spada, that gave to Francesco Borromini the task to expand and modify it to accommodate his numerous collections of works of art.
Cardinal Bernardino’s nephew, Cardinal Fabrizio Spada, Secretary of State of Innocent XII, also a great collector, contributed to the enrichment of the collections, which have come down to us practically intact thanks to a farsighted nineteenth-century faithfulness.
It is a rare case of seventeenth-century Residence that preserves an original and contemporary baroque painting with works by the greatest artists of that period of time, including Guido Reni and Guercino, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Dürer and Rubens, and many others. In the Halls there are also numerous works from the archaeological collection. The visit ended in the Secret Garden famous for the Borromini’s “Perspective Gallery”.