Palazzo Doria Pamphilji, the astonishment

Imagine. A Saturday morning. A miraculous moment of sunny morning after rainy days. Out among modern scabrous art forms that arrest the eye in Rome, if one looks and is possessed of arrestible eyes.

and then, gloriously, found ourselves on Via del Corso, behind a couple, 

he in Borsalino Classico, like mine, and she in leather jacket (see below Helen's leather trousers, my Borsalino in shadow) ... such Saturday morning style

when there on our left a sign foretelling an end to innocent passeggiata

In this seventy year old Italian republic without dukes or counts or princes or marquises, see there

a magnificent word principesche which I suppose can be dully and inadequately translated at 'princely'.  Followed by words like Brueghel, Caravaggio, etc... 

In typing that now, I realise that we did not see, or did not realise if we saw, all such wonders... although now I've gone through it all again they are here below... :-)  

I defend myself with the principle I espouse about galleries, that one should identify wonders to be bewondered by and not treat it like an all-you-can-eat gobble-up.

Nor did we have any idea, in attending to, for a room or so, the excellent clear account of the rooms by Jonathan Doria Pamphilji on the wander-speaker-doovers, which he introduced to Italy twenty years ago, that we were listening to a person himself of remarkable modern noteworthiness—read Vanity Fair. where Jonathan also gives a lively account of family history.

There is information in the gallery's website here, including partial information on the collection.  You can also search for information from the other end, regarding artists, for example the works here of Jan Brueghel... that will give you an impression of the colossal quality of the collection.

My photos are here for memories and for enticement to the blog reader.

one enters via state rooms the intention of which to intimidate.
Perhaps derived from the idea of the Rolli palaces in Genova, such as pioneered by the Doria family 
with whom the Pamphilji were not yet married. Top Doria here. You'll see from that why Jonathan's mother called the Dorias
the pirate branch of the family.
Just exactly why people were being intimidated or awed here I don't know but considering the power
of papal association, the Trump International Hotel in Washington comes to mind.

Jonathan's commentary notes that the general idea in the 1600s was to use paintings much as wallpaper
rather than being given attention as individual art works
and that landscapes were unusual in the 1600s.
In some works the landscape was done by the landscape guy, the people done by the figure painting guy.

One can compare this great opulence with that of great churches intent upon awe, over centuries and still so in Rome.
Jonathan's commentary (he does get called prince but, um, that's been outlawed since the republic began) notes that
the family's power peaked with the election of a Pamphilji as Pope Innocent X.
The title Innocent might have been offered by George Orwell.
Innocent handed out things to family, a nepotic practice begun by the Farnese some time earlier,
see Piacenza in this blog. Nepotic, Jonathan notes, derives from nipote, Italian for grandson.

Arcade of picture, Bernini's Innocent X is on the left, right there.

ill-focused photo of Bernini's Innocent X

This reminds me of the late John Lavett, a foreign service friend killed in a plane crash when he was Charge d'Affaires
in Hanoi in the complicated year of 1975.
A bachelor, John had previously been posted to the Australian Embassy in Moscow.
On his last night in Moscow he spoke to the Wall beside his bed, as we might imagine the gentleman above might speak...
He spoke thus:
"Well Wall, we've been together for two years now. Interesting years. I've enjoyed my time here.
"But there's one thing I've wanted to do, one place I've wanted to go to and I've not been there.
"I've not been to X."
... and in the morning, when he went downstairs, there was a black car, a man smiling, a door opened
... and he was whisked to X.
How that gentleman above must wish to be whisked away...

or perhaps he just has an opinion about the people upstairs

Excuse me for irreverence in the presence of great art, but this has the makings of a caption contest.

Always look where you are going, the delights as well as devils are in the details

You may sit on the modern chairs, not on the roped-off historical.
You may of course wonder who has sat here. 

The artist Albano, or Albanese, perhaps clear if you click and enlarge, the landscape appears to be
of the colli Albani, the Alban Hills, south of Rome,.
Innocent X's predecessor as pope, Urban 8, built this in those hills.
There are little jokes here and there in Italy. The papal summer palace at Castel Gandolfo is high above the
Castel Gandolfo railway station. There is a difficult steep road between, without footpath.
At some time in the past the local government has called this Via Antonio Gramsci.

Reflected in door glass, the Velasquez

Velasquez's Innocent X

The sign outside with lists of artists mentioned Tintoretto.
I confess that there was so much at eye level that I did not look at the ceilings at all.
But then I realise that Tintoretto was dead before this, no chance to do ceilings here,
though doubtless here and elsewhere a continuing inspiration.
This Tintoretto is said to be somewhere here. I may have just brushed past it...

Forgive me, but: Man with 3D Printed Gun.

A room of paintings of the Villa Doria Pamphilji, the largest public park in Rome

a restoration project

if this occasion was in the Villa Doria Pamphilji they must have found the mushrooms

Then another corridor of famous works. This whole gallery is overwhelming, demonstrating my general preference for just focusing on a few works at a time. Somehow the see-the-lot bug got me.

I'm going to get a fail rating for the photos and failure to comment, but I'm not an art historian and my main concern has been to make a record for ourselves and to offer it to readers as a rough introduction.

As one progresses there is the growing sense of how bizarre the wealth of the few, the presumptions of the church chiefs and its relatives to power and money then and this gallery now; open to the public but massive in size, a landmark of wealth and inequality, in this case a more refined and less destructive element than the media moguls and bankers, but nonetheless onepercentile.

But to stay with the past, the era when all this was being set up: in those days there were, running round the streets next door, from the lovely church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, with its fine little Bernini elephant***, the dark mob, the Dominicans, the runners of the Inquisition*****: "Fetch Galileo, let's put the frighteners on him again... oh and tell Bernini that since that elephant is so small, we will be paying half."

Against which big money, big repression stuff, admire this gracious painting below. Not rich people.

Paying artists to depict the poor. Paying for a painting depicting a child who will direct anger at the rich and money changers.

Whose backs are broken producing the produce to fund the rich to build such palaces, families competing and hating and self-aggrandising in Rome? Wandering here, in this place of the very rich, the rough and incoherent graffiti of the streets today becomes more meaningful.

*** At the Wikipedia link from 'Bernini elephant' there is mention of Vittorio de Sica's film Umberto D [link is to the movie at Youtube] a landmark in neorealism, the story of a refined man, pitched into impossible poverty with just his dog. Nothing new about inequality then, move along... 

***** The Wikipedia article on the Inquisition says it's over, because they gave up the torture and burning some time ago. But I note and may blog with photo about the fact that there is a dark box with a slot near the exit at the Papal Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the pope's church in his capacity as Bishop of Rome, carrying the name of the Congregation of the Faith, clearly for anonymous denunciations, denunciations and psychological flayings and punishments of excommunication continuing still. Did those nice people in that painting imagine such things, all this mental and organisational hypertrophy? They seem not to have had even clothes for their child.

enforcing the dress code?

 And here a Brueghel, such a huge collection of them, father and son, more below.

down a staircase into a jumblesome room with three Caravaggio's out of sight, to right

the Caravaggios, with some other stuff, a-clutter, a-clatter. 

And back to the piano nobile [the noble floor, as these high ceilinged first floors are known in Rome] for some lovely smaller works, towards the end of the circuit.

perhaps I should have mentioned this before but if you click on any image they are all enlarged.
It's a way to avoid my commentary too!  :-)

Showing the Doria family emblem

so many utterly famous paintings scattered about

detail from above

detail from above

don't mention the OH&S rules

And is this the guy speaking harshly to proto-bankers, critical of the rich?

The counter-reformation's reply to Botticelli?
I can't find it with a google search for girolamo da carpi doria pamphilji

Worth going to this gallery just for the Brueghels, extraordinary small paintings of story and mystery.
Forget the chocolate box Carravaggios.

As we leave, there is more of a crowd (unintimidated) in the state rooms

Downstairs a fine cafe, quality regal, prices only slightly princely. We enjoyed sitting.