Galleria Spada

The museum is located on the first floor of Palazzo Spada, in the wing that used to belong to Cardinal Girolamo Capodiferro. The Cardinal had built the museum over the historical remains of his family's former home that had been established in 1548. • Room I The room is called the Room of the Popes because of its fifty inscriptions describing the lives of select pontiffs, as commissioned by Cardinal Bernardino. It is also known as the Room with the Azure Ceiling because the ceiling is covered with a turquoise canvas divided into many little compartments marked "camerini da verno" (the local dialect camerini da verno is translated in Italian as camerini di inverno, 'winter cabins' in English). The ceiling coffers' decorations date back to 1777. Among the paintings in this room are: • Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada (1631) by Guido Reni • Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Spada (1631) by Guercino • Portrait of Cardinal Fabrizio Spada (1643–1717) (1754) by Sebastiano Ceccarini • Two Still Lifes (1714) by Onofrio Loth • Four Ovidian mythological scenes by Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari • Apollo and Daphne • Latona curses the Lycians transforming them into Frogs • Mercury entrusts Bacchus to the Nymphs • Bacchus and Ariadne • Four vedute (landscapes) by Hendrik van Lint • Four battle scenes by Jacques Courtois • Room II • This room was created along with Room III. The upper part of the walls were decorated with friezes in tempera on canvas by Perino del Vaga. The other parts of the walls that were originally painted with paneling are now missing. Among the works in this room are: • Fresco frieze (1542) by Perino del Vaga, now replaced by friezes (1635) by Andrea Gennaroli and (1636) by François Perrier • Road to Calvary (c. 1500) by Marco Palmezzano • Portrait of a Botanist, Nobleman, and King David (1570) by Bartolomeo Passerotti • Portrait of a Violinist (c. 1515) by Titian • Four Stories of the Old Testament by Andrea Donducci • Some Madonnas (16th century) by the Umbrian School • The Visitation by Andrea del Sarto • Portrait of Pope Julius III (c. 1550) by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta • Saint Cristopher and Saint Luke (c. 1510) by Amico Aspertini • Room III • This room is called the "Gallery of the Cardinal". It was designed by Paolo Maruscelli in 1636 and 1637, together with Room II, to house the art collection of Bernardino Spada. The ceiling is beamed and French windows lead into galleries, one of which has an iron railing overlooking the large garden. Among the paintings here are: • Frescoes depicting Allegories of the Four Continents, Elements, and Seasons; Trophies and Armor; scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses in Frieze (1698–1699) by Michelangelo Ricciolini • Allegory of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting offering gifts to Minerva, protector of Arts also by Ricciolini • Landscape with Deer-hunt (1550–1560) by Niccolò dell'Abate • Vestals (1670) by Ciro Ferri • Landscapes with Windmills (1607) by Jan Brueghel the Elder • The Kidnapping of Helen copy of original by Guido Reni, painted by Giacinto Campana • The Meeting of Mark Antony and Cleopatra (1702) by Francesco Trevisani • The Massacre of the Innocents and The Sacrifice of Iphiginea (circa 1640) by Pietro Testa • The Astronomers (1645) by Niccolò Tornioli • Triumph of the Name of Jesus (c. 1679), a sketch for the ceiling of the Gesù by Giovanni Battista Gaulli • The Death of Dido (1631) by Guercino • Room IV • This final room was built over a wooden gallery overlooking the large garden. It houses paintings by the Caravaggisti.