The paintings at Palazzo Colonna, starting with the one people come for

The Beaneater

Annibale Carracci’s Il Mangiafagioli is the reason a certain kind of visitor comes to this palace at all, and they walk past a great deal to reach it. The English title is The Beaneater and the Italian is worth knowing because the labels and the staff use it.

It does not need describing at length. It is a small, plain, extremely famous picture in a building full of enormous ones, and the effect of the room depends entirely on that contrast being met rather than explained in advance.

What hangs around it

The gallery collection runs from the Renaissance into the Baroque, and the names the operator and the city put forward are Bronzino, Tintoretto, Guido Reni, Guercino, Salvator Rosa, Ghirlandaio and Gaspard Dughet. A private collection of this age holds a great deal more than any public source itemises.

Look at where they hang rather than only at what they are. This is a family’s own collection in the family’s own rooms, arranged to be seen from the middle of a single long room, not sorted into schools by a curator. It is the last common arrangement of its kind you can walk into in Rome on a Saturday morning.

The Pinturicchio and the Brueghel are behind the other ticket

The Princess Isabelle apartments hold frescoes by Pinturicchio and landscapes by Gaspard Dughet and Jan Brueghel the Elder. They are not in the short ticket.

At the door the operator sells a short tour at about fifteen euros and a complete one at about twenty-five, and the apartments are the difference. On the platform, 2 of the four Palazzo Colonna listings gate an inclusion behind the words “if option chosen” or “if option selected”, and on the flagship the gated line is the apartments. If you have come to Rome for the Pinturicchio, read your own booking twice: the tickets page sets the two tariffs side by side and quotes the reviewer who found out too late.

Laurie, on the flagship listing, is the visitor who got it right: “Paying the extra to see the gardens and the apartment is a must!!”

How much time the pictures actually take

Longer than a Saturday morning if you let them, and the morning ends at 13:15. Suzana, writing on the flagship, gives the reason people underestimate it: “it’s worth visiting as there are few tourists in the gallery, and there’s a picturesque collection of paintings”. An empty room in front of a Tintoretto is a rare thing in this city and it will hold you longer than a crowded one would.

A note on those quotations. The review file behind this site holds 188 written reviews across the catalogue, and 184 of them are five-star, against listing averages of 4.0 to 5.0. So written reviews are quoted here for concrete detail — what somebody saw, what they missed — while the star averages give the overall picture.

Read next

• The room they hang in.
• The route, in the operator’s order.
• Which ticket includes the apartments.

Frequently asked questions