Velvet Hall

On the walls are the ancient and precious counter-cut velvets that name the room, while the ceiling is by Liborio Marmorelli, who worked in 1768. Here there are two important portrait busts sculpted by Alessandro Algardi, as well as fine furniture, on which rest black and white Aquitaine marble. These stone materials, variously coloured, were often obtained by reusing archaeological fragments, as shown by many other pieces in the Gallery and as was the custom in Baroque Rome. Two of the four major paintings, those with “Hagar and the Angel” and the “Sacrifice of Isaac” are by Pasquale Chiesa, a recently rediscovered painter from Genoa. “Hagar and Ishmael” is by the young Mattia Preti. The series with “Apollo and the Muses” was executed by Giuliano Bugiardini, a Florentine Renaissance painter, while a fourth element with “The Arts” is a completion of the sequence executed by the Roman Marco Benefial in 1713.