Cardinal Pamphilj Builds a Palace: Self-Representation and Familial Ambition in Seventeenth-Century Rome

Abstract

In reconstructing the palace commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj between 1636 and 1638, this article brings to light a previously unstudied earlier building phase of the Palazzo Pamphilj in the Piazza Navona, Rome. The revised history alters our understanding of the palace, which was formerly thought to have been designed in its entirety after 1645, by Girolamo Rainaldi and Francesco Borromini, as half its design can now be attributed to Francesco Peperelli, who was an active palace builder though little known today. This new information also changes our perception of Cardinal Pamphilj, whose patronage prior to his pontificate as Innocent X (1644-55) has not been considered by historians. On the contrary, Cardinal Pamphilj emerges as an active patron who engaged in conspicuous consumption-specifically the building of a palace-to fashion an image representing his newly acquired identity as someone at the top of the social hierarchy, acting similarly to, and in competition with, his peers in the Sacred College.