Baroque Style In Italy

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A building of my choice that was constructed in the 17th century which I consider to be representative of Baroque style in Rome is The Palazzo Barberini, and I am going to talk about its history, description of the palace including the façade, space planning, relationship of construction of the space to its function, and about two rooms chosen from the building. I chose this palace because I find Baroque style very fascinating and inspiring and I think that Palazzo Barberini represents well the style of Baroque, its richness and originality. Baroque began in the capital city of Italy, Rome, around 1600. It was linked to counter-reformation; a movement that expressed the triumph of the Catholic Church. “There is nothing more remarkable in that…show more content…
He created the sense of greatness and importance suitable to the Barberini family. The façade has three floors, and it has a lot of big openings, including an open porch at the ground floor, so there had to be some solid construction to hold the building together. The ground floor consists of a seven-bay loggia that is three-storey high, it is open at the bottom but glazed at first and second storeys. Bernini designed three rows of strips on the building that framed off the huge openings of two floors, columns and pillars were attached to it. The design of the façade is inspired by Colosseum, the classical pattern was followed, the columns were in classical order, and everything was proportional and symmetrical. The windows on the first and second floor are “fake perspectives” A fake perspective or “forced” perspective is a technique used to create an optical illusion. It gives a feel to objects being smaller and bigger than they actually are. ”The celebrated windows of the third tier, set in surrounds with feigned perspective, are, however, Maderno's. The device, used by Maderno on at least one other occasion, made it possible to reduce the area of the window-openings; this was necessary for reasons of internal arrangement” (Wittkower, 1999, p.4). This is a characteristic that was often used by Bernini and Borromini in future designs. The decorations on the façade are heraldic to Barberini; these represent the sun and the bees, “three bees are the symbol of this Pope and can be seen on many monuments of Rome but the Barberini had another symbol which does not show on their coat of arms: the Sun” (Piperno,

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