Official Information
Official website: https://www.barberinicorsini.org/
Online tickets: https://www.coopculture.it/it/poi/palazzo-barberini/
Address: Via delle Quattro Fontane 13, 00184 Roma RM, Italy
Google map: View on Google Maps
Opening Hours
Usually Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–19:00; Monday closed. Ticket office closes at 18:00; some public holidays may have special openings or closures. Always check the Practical Information or CoopCulture ticket page for up-to-date hours.
Palazzo Barberini is a major Baroque palace and one of the two homes of the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Italy’s national gallery of older painting. Built in the first half of the seventeenth century for the Barberini family, it involved some of the most important architects of the era: Carlo Maderno began the project, Gian Lorenzo Bernini redesigned key elements after Maderno’s death, and Francesco Borromini contributed the celebrated helicoidal staircase. The result is a monumental residence on a hill just off Piazza Barberini, with a wide central block opening onto gardens and flanked by wings that give the impression of a suburban villa brought into the city. Inside, the museum displays one of Rome’s most important collections of paintings from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Highlights often noted by visitors include Caravaggio’s intense canvas of Judith beheading Holofernes, Raphael’s graceful portrait of La Fornarina, works by Holbein, Lotto, Guido Reni and many others. The arrangement encourages you to move both chronologically and thematically, from medieval altarpieces to sumptuous Baroque ceilings and intimate portraits. The building itself is part of the experience. The grand salone, with Pietro da Cortona’s ceiling fresco celebrating the Barberini and the triumph of Divine Providence, is one of the high points of Roman Baroque decoration and rewards unhurried looking with opera glasses or a zoom lens. Elsewhere you can explore smaller rooms that preserve fragments of seventeenth-century decor, from stuccoes to painted ceilings, which frame the paintings in an almost domestic setting. Because Palazzo Barberini shares the Gallerie Nazionali with Galleria Corsini, a single ticket or combined ticket usually covers both sites, allowing travellers to see how the same national collection plays out in two very different palaces. The official website and ticketing partner CoopCulture publish updated information on exhibitions, combined tickets, free days and any extraordinary evening openings. For visitors interested in Italian painting, Baroque architecture or simply a quieter, more contemplative museum experience than some of the city’s blockbuster attractions, Palazzo Barberini is an essential stop.