The history of Palazzo Corsini begins in 1511 when the building was commissioned by Cardinal Raffaele Riario (1461-1521) on the grounds of Via della Lungara.
The original building was modified between 1659 and 1689, when it became the residence of Queen Christina of Sweden, who moved to Rome in 1655 after converting to Catholicism.
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Opening days
from Tuesday to Sunday
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Opening times
from 10.00 to 19.00
the ticket office closes at 18.00 -
Closing
Monday (except April 21, June 2 and December 8, 2025)
April 22, June 3 and December 9, 2025 -
Extra Opening times
Special openings 2025:
April 21
June 2
December 8 -
Feature List
- Info line
- Wheelchair accessible
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Accessibility
Entrance without architectural barriers.
Dogs, even small ones, are forbidden to enter, with the exception of guide dogs accompanying visually impaired people or unless a pet therapy certificate is presented.
The queen, a woman of great culture and a lover of the arts, also used the palace as the headquarters of the intellectual circle she had established and she commissioned alterations to the interior to house the statue collection on the first floor and the picture gallery on the main floor. Traces of this phase of the palace's history are preserved in the Queen's Alcove, where 16th-century decorations survive. The ownership of the palace passed to the Corsini only in 1736 after the election to the papal throne of Lorenzo (Florence 1652 - Rome 1740), who became pope under the name Clement XII. The very wealthy Florentine family needed a residence in Rome that would be suitable for their new papal status and commissioned architect Ferdinando Fuga to renovate the existing parts of the palace and to enlarge it with new structures. Fuga thus designed a wing that mirrored the existing building and a central body with a monumental staircase: the three buildings are united by the façade, linear and majestic, on Via della Lungara, while the rear, overlooking the vast garden that climbs up to the Janiculum, has a wavy and articulated course. The Corsinis used the palace until 1883, when Prince Tommaso junior sold the property and donated the entire collection to the Kingdom of Italy, contributing to the birth of Italy's first National Gallery. A part of the palace is now home to the Accademia dei Lincei, into whose library the book collection of cardinal nephew Neri Corsini has flowed, while the extraordinary collection of prints constitutes the oldest nucleus of today's National Graphics Institute. The garden, redesigned by Fuga in his 18th-century work, now constitutes the Botanical Garden of Rome.
The Corsini Gallery is the only eighteenth-century Roman picture gallery that is still virtually unchanged today: this is because at the time of the sale of the palace to the Kingdom of Italy (1883) Prince Tommaso Corsini donated, en bloc with the building, the entire collection of works.
The collections were created thanks to the contributions of the various members of the family, starting with the oldest nucleus put together in Florence by Marquis Bartolomeo (1622-85). Alongside this Florentine collection, the Roman branch of the Corsini also set up a collection of works starting from the beginning of the 17th century. The collection held in the palace on the Via della Lungara was set up by Pope Clement XII (Lorenzo Corsini, 1652-1740) and his nephew Cardinal Neri Maria (1685-1770): it included about thirty works from the Florentine fund, other paintings from the Roman one, Lorenzo's holdings (including paintings donated to him once he became pope in 1730) and purchases edited by Neri Maria. The latter broadened the horizon of the collection, looking at seventeenth-century masters, Italian and non-Italian (Caravaggio, Reni, Guercino, Rubens, van Wittel), the sixteenth-century Italian tradition, and painting contemporary to him.
During the 19th century, the collection was modified through sales and purchases, adapting the catalogue of works to the taste of the time. After the sale of the palace and the collection to the Kingdom of Italy in 1883, the original collection was enriched through the acquisition of the Torlonia fund (1892), in view of the opening of the first Italian National Gallery, housed in Palazzo Corsini since 1893. In the years immediately following the birth of the National Gallery, the Italian State allocated to it, among others, the Chigi, Monte di Pietà, and Hertz collections, acquired in order to broaden the historical horizon of the collection.
In the 1920s part of it flowed into the newly established Palazzo Venezia Museum, intended to illustrate the history of medieval and Renaissance art: a project that was short-lived and troubled. The limited spaces of the Corsini Gallery were in any case, not enough to exhibit the large number of works that had been added to the original nucleus: in 1949 the state purchased Palazzo Barberini to transfer en bloc the works of the National Gallery, which reopened in its new location in 1953. The clearing of the Corsini Gallery lasted about thirty years: in fact, in 1984 it was decided to restore the Corsini collection in the palace to which it belonged, leaving in Palazzo Barberini only the groups of works that had been added after the 1883 donation.
Services
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Didactics for schools
Reservation for schools:
available in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish
from Monday to Friday, from 9.00 to 17.00: 848 082 408 and from mobile and abroad +39 0639967200
[email protected] -
Visits
Reservations for Groups
available in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish
from Monday to Friday, from 9.00 to 17.00: +39 639967450
[email protected] - Bookshop
- Wardrobe
Additional Info
- GROUPS AND SCHOOLS
– each group must be composed of a maximum of 25 people, guide included;
– reservations are required both on weekdays and on weekends;
– the use of radio systems is mandatory;
– access is allowed to only one group every hour and in the smaller rooms it could be limited to ensure compliance with the safety distance.
Where
via della Lungara, 10 – 00152 Roma
Transportation
Bus: 23 – 280