Il Quirinal Palace can be visited by reservation. When it comes to what to see in the Quirinal, there is an embarrassment of choices.
The Quirinal in the era before Christ
In the area of the Quirinal hill rose in the 4th century BC the temple of the God Quirinus, which gave the hill its name, and the temple of the Goddess Salus where ceremonies for the state’s well-being were held; the most imposing presences on the hill were certainly those of the Baths of Constantine and the temple of Serapis, built by Caracalla in 217 AD. From the ancient Roman temple come the two sculptural groups of the Dioscuri, whose constant presence on the Quirinal led the hill to take the name of Monte Cavallo.
The Quirinal hill is one of the heights of Rome consisting of a hilly massif, divided from the Pincian Hill to the north by the Sallustian Valley, and from the Viminal Hill to the south by the Quirinal Valley, later called San Vitale Valley. On the northwest and south sides, it originally appeared steep with steep accesses, different elevations now little appreciated in the current urban fabric with levels deeply altered especially by the construction of papal palaces.
The collis Quirinalis
In ancient times the Quirinal was the collis par excellence and the individual summits that stood out there were also called colles. The name Quirinal, therefore, ended up indicating the entire hill which was actually divided into four heights: collis Latiaris, collis Mucialis or Sanqualis, collis Salutaris, and collis Quirinalis.
The collis Quirinalis had great strategic importance and was firmly fortified since the earliest age; later it was included in the city walls, called Servian (4th century BC). According to archaeological and documentary data, the collis Quirinalis corresponds to the area between the Collina Gate of the Servian Wall and the Via delle Quattro Fontane (where the Quirinalis gate should be located); the collis Salutaris between this and Via della Dataria (corresponding to the Salutaris gate); the collis Mucialis between this and Largo Magnanapoli (where the Sanqualis gate was); the collis Latiaris between this and the saddle that originally connected the Quirinal and the Capitoline Hill, a saddle later cut by order of Emperor Trajan for the construction of his forum.
Alta Semita
The main road axis of the hill consisted of a summit route, called the Alta Semita (today’s Via del Quirinale – Via XX Settembre) connecting the Porta Salutaris with Porta Collina, running from west to east towards Sabine territory. On the hill were important places of worship, of which the oldest were those of Quirinus, Salus, and Semosancus, or like the more recent temple that Emperor Domitian raised on the site of his birthplace and the grandest temple of Serapis that Emperor Caracalla built in the 3rd century.
The Quirinal in the Imperial Era
In the territorial administrative division of the Augustan age, the Quirinal was included in Region VI (Alta Semita). In the imperial era, regional boundaries shifted with the new Aurealian age circuit (3rd century AD), which included areas that were previously suburban such as the Castra Praetoria and the Horti Sallustiani.
The district was characterized from the Republican age as an aristocratic residential area, a particular feature preserved even in the imperial age; many noble residences among which those of Pomponius Atticus, friend of Cicero, of the Flavian Gens, of the Claudians, of Fulvius Plautianus; literary sources mention the poet Martial among the inhabitants of the hill. The two male statues in the Piazza del Quirinal represent the Dioscuri, while holding the reins of the rearing horses, according to a rare iconographic scheme that appears from the Severan age (3rd century AD).
The Quirinal from the 15th to the 18th century
The sculptures, probably belonging to the so-called Temple of Serapis, were reused on the hill in the baths of Constantine, on the occasion of the restorations following the earthquake of 443 AD. Interest in the two sculptural groups was rekindled in the 15th century, when Pope Pius II commissioned a first partial restoration of the two colossi between 1469 and 1470. However, it was in the following century with Pope Sixtus V that the sculptures, included in the program of expansion and embellishment of the square, underwent a complete restoration done in 1585 and were transferred to the sides of a marble basin to form a monumental background for the road axis coming from Porta Pia. Finally, it was Pius VI in 1786 who placed the sculptural group in its current position, on the sides of the obelisk from the Mausoleum of Augustus, while in 1818 Pius VII replaced the original basin with a granite shell from the Roman Forum.
The Quirinal in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages the hill became populated with churches, noble palaces, and towers, while ancient buildings fell into ruin and their marbles began to be used to build new structures. In the 1400s and early 1500s around the square and along the ancient via Alta Semita (today via del Quirinale) palaces and villas of nobles and prelates were arranged, among them cardinal Oliviero Carafa, owner of a villa with vineyard on the site where today the Palazzo del Quirinale stands.
The Quirinal in the 16th Century
In 1550 the Carafa villa was rented by Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, owner also of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, who transformed the vineyard into a highly elaborate garden, enriched by fountains, water features, and ancient sculptures. The beauty and charm of the Cardinal d’Este’s vineyard led Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) to expand the small villa at his own expense, entrusting the new building to the architect Ottaviano Mascarino. Between 1583 and 1585 he built an elegant villa with a porticoed façade and loggia internally connected by a splendid spiral staircase; the so-called “torrino” (small tower), the belvedere crowning the building, is also attributed to Mascarino.
After Gregory XIII died, his successor Sixtus V (1585-90) purchased in 1587 from the Carafa the villa of Monte Cavallo to make it the summer residence of the pontificate. The small villa built by Mascarino was, however, insufficient to accommodate the papal court and meet its representational needs, so Sixtus V entrusted the architect Domenico Fontana with the task of expanding the building by constructing a long wing toward the square and a second palace on via del Quirinale, thus creating a large internal courtyard.
Sixtus V also took care to arrange the square, also restoring the sculptural group of the “Dioscuri” which was completed with the addition of a fountain. Sixtus V died at the Quirinal, and the Palazzo renovation project was completed by his successors. Particularly significant was the intervention of Clement VIII (1592-1605), who focused his attention on the garden, ordering among other things the construction of the monumental Organ Fountain, decorated with mosaics, stuccoes, statues, and animated by the sound of a water organ.
The Quirinal Today
The architecture of the Palazzo in the aspect it still maintains today was completed during the pontificate of Pope Paul V Borghese (1605-21). The architect Flaminio Ponzio was responsible for the construction of the wing towards the garden, including, among other things, the Main Staircase, the grand Consistory Hall (today the Banquet Hall) and the Chapel of the Annunciation, frescoed by Guido Reni with some collaborators.
