Palazzo Gambirasi
Roman Palaces
Palazzo Gambirasi in a engraving by Giovanni Battista Falda (Il nuovo teatro delle fabriche I, 1665)
Description
On July 7, 1657, the rich merchant Donato Gambirasi from Bergamo acquired several houses and a palazzo in the immediate neighbourhood of Santa Maria della Pace. Giovanni Antonio de Rossi remodeled the palace, which has eleven window axis on the Via della Pace, but the area acquired by Gambirasi also extended to the north of the church. The urbanistic intervention by pope Alexander VII Chigi, creating a theatralic architecture around Santa Maria della Pace, interfered with Gambirasi's desire to maximize the usable surfaces. The finally built northern extensions shows a much more complex decoration and is distinguished from the actual palace by the missing mezzanine above the ground floor and a higher piano nobile. After the economic decline of the Gambirasi family, the palace was sold to the german community of Santa Maria dell'Anima, which made several flats out of the building. The two crests visible on the engraving are lost.
Literature
Roca de Amicis, Augusto: Palazzo Gambirasi E piazza della Pace: Storia edilizia di un connubio difficile, in: "Palladio", 25.2000, pp. 19-38
