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Located in one of Rome's most beautiful buildings, the 16th century Palazzo Capodiferro, enlarged in the following century, the Galleria Spada houses the important collection of Baroque paintings created during the 17th century by Cardinals Bernardino and Fabrizio Spada.The fineness of this art collection, which is still presented in multiple rows as in a 17th-century picture gallery, gives this place a unique charm also emphasized by its being a precious family collection. On the walls are not only works by famous artists such as Titian and Parmigianino, Guido Reni and Guercino, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, but also a valuable overview of the seventeenth-century painting in Rome.
The collection’s taste and originality are of international prestige, thanks to a conspicuous group of Caravaggesque painters, including Mattia Preti and Cavarozzi, Valentin de Boulogne and Régnier, Cerquozzi and Van Laer. The ancient rooms, decorated with frescoes and period ceilings, are furnished with Baroque, carved and gilded console tables, on which the Spada family's archaeological collection is displayed.
The museum itinerary on the first floor ends with the Secret Garden, which houses the most spectacular Baroque artifice in Rome, the illusionistic Colonnade (or Perspective) built in 1653 by Francesco Borromini for Cardinal Bernardino Spada as a scientific and moral lesso.