The best part of this building is the Gran Salone on the second floor, an amazing huge room used for balls with the ceiling fresco painted by Pietro di Cortona in baroque style showing the "Triumph of the Divine Providence". The room is very large and the ceiling measures about 7’ by 5’. There is a description of what is shown on the ceiling in Italian and it explains in great detail the story. The frescoes are amazing with bright vibrant colors and the story is from Roman mythology, and once again you can see the bees as part of the frescoes. Unfortunately, there is currently restoration effort ongoing in this room and the walls don’t have the paintings that used to hang there. However in other rooms on the first floor you can still see the works by Filippo Lippi, El Greco, Caravaggio, Raphael, Hans Holbein, Tintoretto, Titian and Guido Reni to name just a few.

There is a second entrance to the right which leads to offices. Make sure to look at the curved staircase which is a great study of perspective and ingenuity on the part of Borromini.

Open: 9 am – 7 pm Tue –Sun, Friday and Saturday extended hours till 10 pm, closed on public holidays

Cost: 6.03 euros

http://www.galleriaborghese.it/barberini/en/einfo.htm http://www.galleriaborghese.it/barberini/it/default.htm - the Italian version has links to major paintings, but the English version shows the map of the building, there is much more info on the Italian website

Palazzo Barberini is one of those jewels in Rome, that if you haven’t heard of it, you will miss it and therefore, will miss an unforgettable experience. You don’t need to make reservations, since there is never a line to get in, even though all the websites tell you that you have to make a reservation. The Palazzo is located just a block away from the corner of Via Veneto and Piazza Barberini that boasts Fontana del Tritone (Triton fountain) – one of Bernini’s masterpieces. The fountain is located on a Piazza that is surrounded by traffic on all sides and it might be a challenge to cross the street to get to the fountain, but it’s really worth it. It is really a gorgeous fountain with sea god Triton in the middle – half man, half fish with the mermaid’s tail sitting on top of the huge shell supported by the dolphins.

The Palazzo is up on the hill and when you enter through the gates, you see this large villa surrounded by the tropical flowers and plants. I even saw one of the people who work there looking out from one of the windows on the second floor and posing for a picture that I was taking of the building.

Barberini was a pope in the 17th century, and this Palazzo was built for him by several architects including Bernini and Borromini (it will celebrate 300-year anniversary in 20 years). Everywhere in the building you can see the bees which are the symbol of Barberini family – they are in the wall and ceiling patterns, above the doors. There are several busts of the pope himself in the Palazzo. The Palazzo is also called the National Gallery of Classic Art (Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica).

Continued in Part II