PALAZZO BARBERINI

The bee was the family emblem of the Barberini family who built this magnificent palazzo around 1630, employing as architects an unhappy partnership of the great Francesco Borromini and his loathed (and, materially, much more successful) rival Gianlorenzo Bernini. Bees are everywhere in the palazzo, which now houses part of the Galeria Nazionale. 

On the landing of the great staircase leading up to the gallery, you meet this lion, an ancient Roman carving of great exuberance, wittily set into the wall as though the regal creature was strolling up the stair ahead of you.

The vast central hall of the palazzo has a famous ceiling, celebrating the glory of the family, painted by Pietro da Cortona; on a summer day, open windows allow the breeze to catch the wonderfully chic purple sunblinds.

At the top is the gallery's smelly gent's loo with a simple oval window giving the most perfect view of the top storey, with its false-perspective window surrounds by Borromini, who was an obsessive genius with such effects. His astonishing, tiny jewel of a church and cloister, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, is just next door.

Elsewhere in the palazzo is Borromini's oval spiral stair, its Tuscan columns emblazoned with (of course) more bees. Outside, there are the dilapidated remains of the palazzo's once-famous giardino segreto, and this Apollo sun-burst face on a console bracket on the facade...