Barberini Museum Guided Tour

Tour overview

Barberini Palace

On this tour, we will take you to one of most intriguing buildings in Rome, designed during the Baroque period in 1623 and located on the Rione Trevi. Here you will visit an extensive collection of artwork by the best Italian artists of the 1500s–1600s: Raphael, Caravaggio, Ribera and Guercino, Lanfranco and the genius of Bernini, Nicolas Poussin, and the ceiling painted by Pietro da Cortona. The palace also houses works by Maratti, Battoni, Canaletto, Mengs and van Wittel, in addition to two of the world’s most famous works of art: La Fornarina by Raphael and Judith and Holofernes by Caravaggio.

What we will do

2.5-hour guided tour through a series of important paintings that we will describe in detail, from the history of each artist and who commissioned the paintings to the story behind the art styles and all the gossip of the time among the priests, cardinals, nobles and popes who made Rome what it really is today. Whatever remained from the Roman Empire was also kept and carefully preserved by some incredible families like the Orsini, Barberini, Borghese and the Medici.

The tour will take about 2 hours in the most important rooms, like the one containing The Triumph of Divine Providence, which is a great fresco painting by Pietro da Cortona, and another great painting depicting The Celebration of Christina of Sweden by Filippo Gagliardi, not to mention the Helicoidal Staircase by Borromini, which many staircases across the world have been based on.

We will include all the important galleries as well as explore the structure which Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who later became Pope Urban VIII, bought in 1625. This includes details about the architecture and the way it was built by Carlo Maderno with the help of the young architect Francesco Borromini; how his biggest competitor Bernini took over the project and somehow made it better; and how the palace was confiscated by Pope Innocent X and only given back to the Barberini family in 1653.

With our mesmerizing guide to the Barberini family and all their hidden secrets through their best architect Bernini, you will feel like you are visiting Rome in the 1600s, living in that period where you could meet the best geniuses of the Baroque era hanging around the streets and fountains of Rome.