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Piazza del Quirinale, Roma, 2019.

Hall of the Fountain, Palazzo Colonna, Rome. Photograph via Galleria Colonna #palazzocolonna #hallofthefountain #rome #italy #palace #palazzo #galleriacolonna #quirinal #colonna #museum #apartments #royalapartments #artgallery #renaissance #renaissancerome #venetianstyle #interiors #decor #decoration #design #interior #interiordecorator #interiordecor #interiordecoration #interiordecoration #classicalstyle #classicism #sculpture #art #artworks #frescoes (at Rome, Italy) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClRMkz8o6bb/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Boxer at Rest (WIP last updated) Other POV #boxerofquirinal #statue #model #3dmodel #3dwork #3d #zbrush #zbrushsculpt #digitalart #digitalartoftheday #boxer #anatomy #anatomystudy #awesome #quirinal #classicism #classicart #statues

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Image: “Quirinal Hill Luigi Rossini” by Crux. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

On Friday, my final day in the Eternal city, I made my way to the Piazza del Quirinale for one last visit. As I explained in my first entry, the Piazza del Quirinale is the subject of my current research, which examines the role of the piazza in Rome during the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, and attempts to demonstrate the ways in which the Roman piazza differed iconographically, as well as conceptually, from the public squares of other early modern European cities.  Over the course of my trip to Rome, I visited the Piazza del Quirinale a number of times in order to study the complex, together with its architectural and sculptural components. For this final visit, however, I wanted to approach the way in which I experienced the piazza differently. I wanted for my last experience at this great space––a veritable urban stage set––to be less academic, and more personal. I therefore set out to imagine how an eighteenth-century visitor from Paris, London, Vienna, or another European city outside of the Papal States would experience the site. Upon reaching this high point on the Quirinal Hill, I imagined that our eighteenth-century companion––let us say he is a Frenchman––would have been impressed by the grand façades of the papal residence, the Palazzo del Quirinale, and the Palazzo della Consulta, completed in 1737 by architect Ferdinando Fuga to accommodate papal government and judicial bodies, as well as military units. The two palace façades were adorned with sculptures by leading seventeenth and eighteenth-century artists, including Stefano Maderno, whose reclining statue of Saint Peter lies on one side of the broken segmental pediment below the iconic balcony of the Palazzo del Quirinale, on the other side of which is a statue of Saint Paul by Guillaume Berthelot. On the façade of the even more richly decorated Palazzo della Consulta, one sees several beautiful sculptures by Filippo della Valle, a prominent eighteenth-century sculptor who, like the architect of the palace, Ferdinando Fuga, was a Florentine––as was the project’s patron, Pope Clement XII, a member of a powerful Florentine noble family, the Corsini. Our eighteenth-century visitor would have immediately recognized that the Piazza del Quirinale, a space defined by the imposing architecture of the Palazzo del Quirinale, a monument to papal power, and the Palazzo della Consulta, a monument to bureaucratic, judicial, and military power, was a venue for the display of social prestige and political authority. The Palazzo della Consulta stood in between the Palazzo del Quirinale and a third structure, the Scuderie del Quirinale, the papal horse stables, which, with their sumptuous façade and grand exterior staircase, were just as, if not more, spectacular than the two palazzi. The eighteenth-century façade of the Scuderie, designed by architect Alessandro Specchi and built between 1722 to 1732, was altered in later centuries, robbing the structure of its original magnificence. But this magnificence can be glimpsed through a marvelous veduta by Giovanni Paolo Pannini depicting the piazza in the 1730s, allowing us to see this space as an urban stage set, a venue in which to convey power and authority. Our eighteenth-century Frenchman would have been familiar with such spaces of power, for he would have known the many places royales that one finds in Paris, but also throughout France, in such cities as Nancy, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon, Dijon, Strasbourg, and Toulouse. Like the Piazza del Quirinale, these public squares were open spaces, consciously carved out of the urban fabric, and defined by a unified architectural frame. These frames serve as scenic backdrops for what is effectively an urban stage, upon which a ruler can assert his or her power and authority, and can engage in self-representation through the use of spectacle. The stylistically and iconographically coordinated design scheme of the Piazza del Quirinale’s architectural ensemble, with its set of three structures, visually unified through style, color scheme, ornamental vocabulary, and formal design, would have reminded our French visitor of comparable venues of power in France. However, for our eighteenth-century Frenchman, it would have seemed as though something were missing. In the center of the Piazza del Quirinale, there would have stood a pair of colossal antique statues, known as the Dioscuri––the obelisk that presently stands at the site would not have been seen by our eighteenth-century visitor unless he visited after 1786, the year in which the great monolith was re-erected by Pius VI. These antique statues, which still stand in the piazza today, are the centerpiece of this urban stage. At a time when antiquities were all the rage in Europe, antique statues of such tremendous size would have certainly fascinated our eighteenth-century Frenchman, and, because of their connection to the classical past, over which the papacy was symbolically asserting its dominion, these sculptures would have also been read as expressions of temporal authority. However, in the French place royale, and indeed, in most European public squares designed to assert authority, the central position of the space would have been used to display the image of the ruler himself, or a member of the ruling dynasty. Such direct assertion of authority was not seen in Roman piazze, a city in which the rulers were elected popes, rather than dynastic monarchs ruling by divine right. And the Piazza del Quirinale, inspite of its unquestionably political aims, was no exception. On the Quirinal, power was expressed through a distinct iconographical language, which drew heavily upon Rome’s ancient heritage. While Louis XIV, for example, appears in certain public squares in the guise of a Roman emperor, only Papal Rome could truly claim to be the heir of the Caesars, and used this historical claim to express their temporal authority in their own distinct fashion.