Palazzo Montecitorio




"Palazzo Ludovisi" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Palazzo Boncompagni Ludovisi.




























Palazzo Montecitorio
Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic

Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome.jpg
Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies

General information
Town or city Rome
Country Italy
Coordinates 41°54′05″N 12°28′43″E / 41.9014°N 12.4786°E / 41.9014; 12.4786
Client Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi
Design and construction
Architect
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Carlo Fontana
Ernesto Basile

The Palazzo Montecitorio (Italian pronunciation: [paˈlattso ˌmontetʃiˈtɔːrjo]) is a palace in Rome and the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.




Contents






  • 1 History


  • 2 See also


  • 3 Gallery


  • 4 External links





History


The palace's name derives from the slight hill on which it is built, which was claimed to be the Mons Citatorius, the hill created in the process of clearing the Campus Martius in Roman times.


The building was originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the young Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV. However, with the death of Gregory XV by 1623, work stopped, and was not restarted until the papacy of Pope Innocent XII (Antonio Pignatelli), when it was completed by the architect Carlo Fontana, who modified Bernini's plan with the addition of a bell gable above the main entrance. The building was designated for public and social functions only, due to Innocent XII's firm antinepotism policies which were in contrast to his predecessors.


In 1696 the Curia apostolica (papal law courts) was installed there. Later it was home to the Governatorato di Roma (the city administration during the papal period) and the police headquarters. The excavated obelisk of the Solarium Augusti, now known as the Obelisk of Montecitorio, was installed in front of the palace by Pius VI in 1789.


With the Unification of Italy in 1861 and the transfer of the capital to Rome in 1870, Montecitorio was seized by the Italian government and chosen as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, after consideration of various possibilities. The former internal courtyard was roofed over and converted into a semi-circular assembly room by Paolo Comotto. The Chamber was inaugurated on 21 November 1871.


But the building proved wholly inadequate: the acoustics were terrible, it was very cold in winter and very hot in summer. As a result of extensive damage from water seepage, the palace was condemned in 1900. An attempt to build a new palace for the Chamber of Deputies on the Via Nazionale failed, and a provisional meeting hall was built on the Via della Missione. Only in 1918 was the Chamber definitively returned to the Palazzo Montecitorio.


The return of the Chamber of Deputies to the palace followed extensive renovations, which left only the facade intact. The architect, Ernesto Basile, was an exponent of Art nouveau, known in Italy as the "Liberty" style. He reduced the courtyard, demolished the wings and rear of the palace, constructing a new structure dominated by four red-brick and travertine towers at the corners. Basile also added the so-called Transatlantico, the long and impressive salon which surrounds the debating chamber and now acts as the informal centre of Italian politics.


The debating chamber is characterized by numerous decorations in the Art Nouveau style: the impressive canopy of coloured glass (the work of Giovanni Beltrami), the pictorial frieze entitled The Italian People (by Giulio Aristide Sartorio) which surrounds the chamber, the bronze figures flanking the presidential and government benches, and the panels depicting The Glory of the Savoy Dynasty by Davide Calandra.



See also



  • Palazzo del Quirinale

  • Palazzo Madama

  • Palazzo Chigi

  • Palazzo della Consulta

  • Palazzo di Giustizia



Gallery






  • Montecitorio Panini by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, c. 1747







  • Square with the obelisk







  • Front façade







  • Rear façade







  • Debating chamber of the chamber of deputies, designed by Ernesto Basile (1902-1918)






External links







  • Virtual Tour

  • Very short history of the palace

  • Panoramic virtual tour of the Palace & the sundial obelisk









-

Popular posts from this blog

Eastern Orthodox Church

Image
Not to be confused with Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Christianity, or Eastern Catholic Churches. "Eastern Orthodoxy", "Orthodox Church", "Orthodox Catholic Church", and "Orthodox Christian Church" redirect here. For other uses, see Orthodox (disambiguation). This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably . The readable prose size is 132 kilobytes. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding or removing subheadings. ( January 2018 ) Part of a series on the Eastern Orthodox Church Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator, Hagia Sophia Overview Structure Theology (History of theology) Liturgy Church history Holy Mysteries View of salvation View of Mary View of icons Background Crucifixion / Resurrection / Ascension of Jesus Christianity Christian Church Apostolic succession Four Marks of the Church Orthodoxy Organization Autocephaly Patriarchate ...
Read more

Zagreb

Image
This article is about the Croatian capital city. For other uses, see Zagreb (disambiguation). City in City of Zagreb, Croatia Zagreb City Grad Zagreb City of Zagreb Clockwise, from top: St. Mark's Square, Croatian State Archives, Zagreb Tram, Art Pavilion, Cibona & HOTO towers and Croatian National Theatre. Flag Coat of arms Zagreb Location of Zagreb in Croatia Show map of Croatia Zagreb Zagreb (Europe) Show map of Europe Coordinates: 45°49′N 15°59′E  /  45.817°N 15.983°E  / 45.817; 15.983 Coordinates: 45°49′N 15°59′E  /  45.817°N 15.983°E  / 45.817; 15.983 Country   Croatia County City of Zagreb RC diocese 1094 Free royal city 1242 Unified 1850 Subdivisions 17 city districts 218 local committees (70 settlements) Government  • Type Mayor-Council  • Mayor Milan Bandić (BM 365)  • City Assembly 51 members BM 365, ZL, NS-R (14) SDP, GLAS, HNS, HSS, NH-PS (13) ...
Read more

Understanding the information contained in the Deep Space Network XML data?

Image
up vote 1 down vote favorite NASA's Deep Space Network activity can be viewed conveniently at https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html but if you would like data in a more raw XML form, it can be accessed as described in this answer Below is a small Python script that reads the XML into a list of dictionaries, and saves it to disk as a JSON. The dictionaries are organized at the higher level by dish, then by spacecraft per dish. Question: What are the most-likely meanings of all the data field contained in the Deep Space Network XML data? This is the example url from the other answer, used in the script below: https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/data/1365107113.xml def dictify(r,root=True): # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2148119/how-to-convert-an-xml-string-to-a-dictionary-in-python/30923963#30923963 if root: ret...
Read more