Palazzo Chigi

Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia is a Baroque residence whose architecture, furnishings and room arrangements preserve the history of the Chigi family. Gian Lorenzo Bernini reworked the palace and the surrounding urban space for Pope Alexander VII in the 1660s and 1670s.

Why it matters

The palace is a rare example of a Baroque residence that retains much of its historic arrangement and furnishings. It forms part of Bernini's larger plan for Ariccia, developed with the collegiate church, the arcaded exedra and the wooded Barco. The rooms document the domestic and ceremonial life of a major Roman family beyond the capital.

What to notice

The sequence of state rooms retains seventeenth-century furnishings and paintings associated with the Roman Baroque. The ducal chapel preserves a red-chalk drawing of Saint Joseph with the Child, signed and dated 1663 by Bernini. Chigi emblems, including the six-pointed star, recur throughout the palace. On the rear, the façade meets a sculpted rock face that ties the building to the surrounding landscape.

Context and history

The Savelli family built the earlier ducal residence in the late sixteenth century. In 1661 Cardinal Flavio Chigi and the princes Mario and Agostino acquired the fief. Bernini received the commission for the palace and the renewal of the town in 1664; work continued under his collaborator Carlo Fontana until about 1672. The palace and park were sold to the Comune di Ariccia in 1988, and the house opened as a museum in 2008. Its Museo del Barocco Romano includes about three hundred paintings from donated collections.