The Families Who Made Rome: A History and a Guide

by Anthony Majanlahti

Both history and guide, this fascinating book tells the stories of the noble clans who built the piazzas, palazzos and fountains we see today. Famous sites take on a new significance as the author tells the family histories with all the scandals, intrigues and power grabs.

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Art, Travel, Biography

400 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 2005

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to give about twenty-eight stars to this book. I have read it twice and I plan to read it again. Twenty-eight stars, or may be thirty-two, because it deals with Renaissance and Baroque Rome -- and everything about Rome during that period has to be grandiose.

The book is a mixture between a history & art & architecture book and a travel guide. It presents the powerful families that dominated not just the city but the whole Papal territories. There were several but Majanahti has selected to focus on seven of them: the Colonna, the Della Rovere, the Farnese, the Borghese, the Barberini, the Pamphilj and the Chigi. All these families succeeded in placing one of their clan in the throne of St Peter’s. In an introductory chapter, however, Majanlahti has also provided a shorter overview of early renaissance families such as the Cenci, the Mattei and the Santacroce. Certainly, there were more. We have the Orsinis, the Medici (Florentine but had three popes in Rome) and the Aldobrandini – to name a few others, but Majanlahti’s selection is more than satisfactory. Several of these families originated outside Rome (the most famous the Medici but also the Della Rovere) but all of them made a fortune in the eternal city.



Reading it made me feel that I would need a full year wandering through the streets of Rome if I wanted to get a clear and more or less complete picture of how these families left their mark – palaces, churches, chapels, obelisks, squares, fountains, gardens, tombs, painting collections, sculpture collections, theatres, libraries, musical pieces, monumental staircases, bridges, fortresses.. You name it, they had put their powerful fingers in it.

They also intermarried and this makes it particularly challenging to trace their destinies. Several of them still survive. One such case is the Colonna, one of the most ancient and who now still live in one of their palaces. For me theirs was one of the more interesting stories. Not only was its pope, Martin V (1417-1439), the ‘leader’ since he was the one who brought back the papacy to Rome from Avignon, I was very taken by visiting his tomb in St John the Lateran in my recent visit to Rome , but the fascinating Vittoria Colonna has been engaging my interest for a while now – she crops up everywhere, like for example in the astounding castle in Ischia.



The first one in Majanlahti’s gallery is the Cenci. This clan has fascinated painters and writers across centuries. Even before the modern interest in rescuing famous females from history, the poor Beatrice already captivated painters such as Guido Reni and writers like Dumas, Stendhal, Dickens, Hawthorne and Shelley. Then the Della Rovere are a curious lot. There were two popes out of this Oak-tree family. The uncle, Sixtus IV (1471-1484) and the nephew, Julius II (1503-1513), did not get along that well until Sixtus’s preferred nephew, and rival of Giuliano (later Julius) disappeared (?¿) Julius is of course the famous pope of Michelangelo, and the one who expanded greatly the papal territories when he managed to expel by force the Bentivoglio out of Bologna and incorporate the university town into his territories. Unsurprisingly, Julius is remembered with less warmth in Bologna than in Rome. The Borgias do not make it to this book – they were not Italian and then Julius was so successful in his propaganda campaign against them, that they have gone down into history as the greatest villains in the papacy, when the smarter Julius outdid them in atrocities.

The Farnese offer a gripping history. They were originally a warrior family. Pope Paul III (1534-1549) was the brother of Giulia Farnese, the most famous of the lovers of the Borgia pope. That certainly helped him with the cardinalate. But not just the pope figured prominently; his grandson Alessandro was the model nipote. One can see Titian’s portraits of both of them in the Naples Capodimonte museum.



Why these portraits are in Naples presents already an interesting story. Even before the Emperor Charles V allowed it, Paul managed to get Parma as a Duchy for Ottavio, another one of his grandsons, not only did he get away with it, but he also got the new Duke to marry Margherita, an illegitimate daughter of the Emperor. The Farnese linked up with the Spanish Royal family again in the 18th century, when this crown no longer belonged to the Habsburgs but to the Bourbons. One of the Spanish Bourbon sons, Charles, inherited the Parma Duchy through his mother and using this as a spring plank, Charles jumped onto the Naples kingdom. And this explains why those Titian paintings together with the amazing collection of classical sculpture that the Farnese dug in Rome such as the Farnese Bull and Hercules, are now in the Parthenopean city.



The Borghese made a good inroad into the Roman power considering that they were originally from modest Sienese origins. Their pope, Paul V (1605-1621), and never forget the nipote Scipione Borghese, managed to finish many enduring things. One was, finally, St Peter’s, but also the Quirinal palace. Paul also established further the tenets of the Counterreformation by incorporating new saints onto the platform (Carlos Borromeo, Filippo Neri, Teresa de Avila) He is famous also for his ‘conflict’ with Galileo, who had been formerly a friend. Nowadays the Borghese are very popular thanks to the collecting proclivities of Scipione. Today visiting their Palazzo, with the extraordinary Bernini sculptures and six Caravaggio’s, requires planning well ahead given the modern phenomenon of mass tourism. Not only would I recommend booking in advance but would also advise to book two time slots. Each wave of visitors is allowed only two hours. When that time slot is over everyone has to leave, the museum is completely emptied, and the next lot comes in. The recommendation is to then visit in the morning and look at the Berninis (with everything else) in the first floor, go for a lunch break over the following two hours and then go back in for the second floor and marvel at the Caravaggio’s (and everything else).. Later on the Borghese came to the limelight again when Napoleon’s sister Pauline got to carry the Borghese name when she married Camillo.



Sadly, or fortuitously, the Barberini palace is not as popular with the tourists. There one can enjoy its spaciousness because it is also huge. One can just go without previous reservations; it has wonderful pieces and the large room with the huge ceiling painting by Pietro Cortona Allegory of Divine Providence (and Barberini power) is just worth the visit. The palace had a huge theatre which could seat three thousand people and where a great deal of Roman Baroque music developed Voyage dans la Rome baroque: Le Vatican, les princes et les fêtes musicales. Unfortunately, Mussolini demolished it.

My spirally self had to be fascinated with Borromini’s spirally (elicoidale) staircase.



The Barberinis were wealthy merchants from Florence. Their palace there is in the Santa Croce square. But as they did not get along with the Medici, they had to leave. One of the family, Matteo, became Urban VIII (1623-1644) and adapted the family’s emblem with horseflies to one with bees. Now there are crests with bees all over the place in Rome. I am particularly partial to Urban because he is the pope who decided to transfer the body of Countess Matilda of Canossa to St Peter and commission Bernini to do the monument. I believe she is the only real woman to have an effigy there I still have to write my review on this book Tuscan Countess: The Life and Extraordinary Times of Matilda of Canossa - she was the Middle Ages woman who forced the Emperor Henry IV to submit to Pope Gregory VII’s authority . Later on, one of Barbernini, Taddeo, married Anna Colonna thereby associating themselves and the family then associated itself with one of the most prestigious clans. The Barberini have lived on but have lost most of their wealth.



After Urban neither the French nor the Spanish succeeded in pushing through the new conclave of 1644 their preferred cardinals. Instead a Gianbattista Phamphilj was elected as Innocent X (1644-1655). Even though he came from Spanish Naples, he enjoyed sufficient independence thanks to the deep pockets of his sister in law, the formidable Olimpia Maidalchini (1592-1657).



The Pamphilj family originally came from Umbria. Their origins can be traced to a late medieval family, but they claimed to descend from a noble in Charlemagne’s entourage. To imagine what Innocent was like the best is to look at Velázquez’s portrait. IMAGE. But behind those inquisitive eyes there stood the brains of Olimpia. A Majanlahti says, “Olimpia was a satirist’s dream: a tough, rich, bossy woman with a reputation for avidity”. Her son, Camillo, succeeded in extricating himself from his mom’s tentacles by marrying another Olimpia, but an Aldobrandini this time. Very wealthy.



The final family are the Chigi. I first run across them when I read Raffaello: Una vita felice, since the wealthy banker Agostino Chigi (The Great – 1466-1520) had been a major patron of the Urbino painter. Agostino worked closely with the mighty Julius II. He was a major patron of culture, for together with Raphael he supported Del Piombo and Il Sodoma and founded a press that published, for the first time in Rome, books in Greek. It was his great-nephew Fabio who became Alexander VII (1655-1667) and who welcomed in Rome a complicated guest, the former queen of Sweden, Christina. Unlike his relative Agostino, Alexander was not too interested in painting. But he was in architecture. The pope strongly disliked Borromini and strongly liked Bernini. The pope had in his rooms a wooden Lego-like model of Rome with which he played designing the overall layout of the city, moving the various parts around; he always counted on Bernini to execute his urbanizing plans. Buildings are however more expensive than canvases and his pockets were not too deep. One would not suspect this given how his name and Bernini’s can be traced in Rome today. What they masterminded was to complete buildings that had been left unfinished by their predecessors. Today several of the churches, thanks to their newer façades, seem Chigi’s. One is Sant’Andrea della Valle, famous also from the fist Act in Tosca.

Anyway, I am offering here a very limited sampling of the wonders offered by this book is extraordinary. It ought to interest anybody who is interested in Rome.

And then I wonder – Who isn’t interested in Rome? For don’t all paths lead there?

[DMae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating tour through Rome with some of the most powerful makers and movers of the city. You won't be able to see Rome accurately without this book.

[JodiP · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this after staying in Rome a few days: I wanted to jump back on the plane, rent an apartment for a month and explore all the history this book has to offer. It would be a great reference book because it centers around each family's Pope, which is useful in reading about medieval/Renaissance Europe.

[Pedro Ceneme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is part travel guide, part biography and part history of the city of Rome and the politics of central Italy. While it succeeds in each role in various degrees, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Each chapter starts with a brief overview of the period which will discuss, focusing on the political environment of Europe in general and central Italy in particular. It then goes on to narrate a succinct biography of one of the main families of Rome the title refers to, first on broader terms and then focusing on a selection of its main members. Then the book goes to explore buildings in Rome that were inextricably linked to the political role such family had in the city, either in building or renovating such structures.

Overall, this book explores a great deal about the key role the Church had on multiple levels: its influence on the day-to-day affairs of the city of Rome, how it influenced and was influenced by the great powers of Europe, how it was a key instrument for political patronage and competition between the noble families of Italy. Virtually all the families mentioned here saw a major increase in their fortunes, both pecuniary and reputationally once they had control of the Throne of Saint Peter. Becoming pope meant control of vast resources derived from hundreds of parishes and donations, capacity to influence European politics and ability to shape physically and forever transform the capital of Western Christendom. Becoming pope, an elective post after all, also meant the possibility of promoting family members to key spots in such powerful structure, perpetuating the legacy of your name through such links. Its quite impressive to notice how many of these families had their finest hour 600 – 400 years ago but either remain relevant or faded into the background just recently, another testament of the massive resources they were able to command through their key spots in the Roman nobility and Church structure.

All these factors are explained either directly or indirectly while Majanlahti takes us to each of the main monuments such families built or renovated, including many that are not that obvious in travelling plans. He explains the specific factors around the decision to alter the urban environment, the details around its construction, funding, and decoration, as well as the functions it had throughout time. This is really an outstanding source for anyone who is interested in the Renaissance, the Catholic Church, or Italian politics during the Modern Era, especially if you intend to visit Rome.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelously fun and fascinating look at the influence various grand, princely families have had on the history of Rome and Italy but even more importantly on the physical fabric of the city of Rome in terms of the buildings - palaces, churches, etc. - that they created and in many cases their descendants still inhabit.

The history of Rome for over a millennium was largely the history of a relatively small number of noble families and their history is inextricably linked to the city of Rome and its buildings. There are not many books in English that look in any detail at those families so this book does not have much competition.

It is not just a guide book, it is far to well written for that, though it would be useful reading if planning a trip to Rome.

[Valverde · Rating 5 out of 5]

After my last visit in Rome, I was interested to read a book describing the history behind the palazzos. Surprisingly, there aren't so many in English, but I was fortunate enough to find this gem. It does not only tell the stories of the palazzos, but also the stories of the families who built and owned them. And that's how I found that the history of Rome families is strongly intertwined with the history of Popes and that many of these palazzos had some connection to some Pope. Reading this book brought me back on the streets of Rome and besides exploring streets and parts of the city which I already knew, a miriad of new secrets uncovered, adding to the long list of places to be seen the next time I'll return to the capital of the world.

[Vicki Milham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected but that's on me. I was expecting more about the families, not a tourist guide to each family's impact on the architecture of Rome. It was interesting but the sections where he takes you through each building or down each street were harder to read as it felt like you needed to be reading those sections while you were at the actual site

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book. A bit dated at this point and perhaps a bit too much detail at times but it is a good overview of the families who made modern Rome - Chigi, Borghese, Colonna, Pamphili, Della Rovere, Farnese, Barberini, Cenci, Santacroce, Mattei along with history, geography, architecture, art, lots of popes and lots of Bernini.

[Carla Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When visiting Rome I often wondered about history of different Palazzos.
This is an intriguing history of many families in Rome, mainly Renaissance who rebuilt Rome.
There is a huge palazzo near Campi di Fiori that I used to wonder about. I thought it was probably a police station because of all of the carabienieri with sub machine guns standing around.
It turns out this was once the Farnese palazzo now the French embassy.
This book has fascinating stories packed into its pages.