CANCELLERIA, PALAZZO della. — It is one of the largest and most significant Renaissance buildings in Rome. Construction was begun in 1485 by Cardinal Raffaele Riario on the site of the ancient basilica founded in honor of s. Lorenzo by Pope Damasus and of the fifteenth-century palace belonging to its titular cardinal; it was completed only after 1511.
The inscription on the façade indicates that by 1495 the building had reached that stage and that the cardinal had already decided to incorporate into the large quadrilateral occupied by his building the rebuilt basilica of which he was titular.
Indeed, it is to be assumed that the arrangement created by Cardinal Riario and his architects for the rebuilt Basilica represents a makeshift solution in comparison with the initial plans, which are in any case unknown. In the construction of the palace, three successive phases may nevertheless be distinguished: the first, extending approximately until 1480, essentially comprises the side facing Via del Pellegrino; the second, the main façade and perhaps certain parts of the courtyard and church; and the third, finally, the completion of the courtyard, the building facing present-day Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and a general reorganization of the third section. With regard to the first two phases, it is REGNO (v.), a Lombard sculptor and decorator who was extremely active in Rome during the second half of the fifteenth century, played the leading role in the works; his workshop must certainly be credited with the extremely elegant frames of the windows on the façade and of many doors inside the building. The third phase, however, according to Vasari as well, was directed by a commission Bramante (v.). Nevertheless, it is to be thought that Bramante himself had already concerned himself with the palace, and particularly with the magnificent courtyard, a masterpiece of early Roman Renaissance architecture, to which tradition has always attached the name of the great architect.
Inside the building, which has housed the Apostolic Chancery since 1521, special mention should be made, in addition to the grand Riaria Hall, of the hall known as the Hall of the Hundred Days (v. ACCADEMIE), decorated with frescoes by Giorgio Vasari depicting scenes from the life and pontificate of Paolo III Farnese (this alone, having been damaged during the fire that broke out on New Year’s Eve in 1940, underwent extensive restoration), and of the chapel known as the Pallio Chapel, decorated with extremely elegant paintings and stuccoes by Pierin del Vaga, who also painted elsewhere in the same palace, including the vault of the Hall known as the Study.
In 1798 the palace housed the tribunal of the Roman Republic, and in 1848 the Chamber of Deputies of the Papal States; it was at the foot of the grand staircase that Pellegrino Rossi was killed on 15 November of that year. In 1849 the palace also became the seat of the Constituent Assembly of the second Roman Republic. — Vedi TAVV. XXXVIII-XXXIX.
CANCELLERIA DEI BREVI APOSTOLICI:
V. SEGRETERIA DI STATO.