Montecitorio Palace

Montecitorio Palace is a historic building in Rome that overlooks the Parliament square on one side and the Monte Citorio square on the other, which houses the Chamber of Deputies and the Italian Republic and the Italian Parliament meeting in common session (together deputies and senators).

The history of the building is somewhat troubled. Even the name is of uncertain origin: some believe that electoral assemblies took place there in Roman times (hence "mons citatorius"); for others the name of the place derives from the fact that the resulting materials of the reclamation of the nearby Campo Marzio ("mons acceptorius") were unloaded. The current palace, which took the place of a pre-existing group of huts, was commissioned by Pope Innocent X to Bernini as the future home of the Ludovisi family.

The pope died in 1655, the works were interrupted due to lack of funds and were not resumed until more than thirty years later by the will of another pontiff of the same name (Innocent XII), who initially intended to use the building as a hospice for the poor and then he decided to install the Apostolic Curia (the pontifical tribunals) there.

Meanwhile Bernini was dead and the new architect Carlo Fontana profoundly modified Bernini's project, preserving the characteristic convex façade and adding the airy bell gable. Fontana instead had to renounce, by the will of the pope (again the lack of funds!), To create a single large square in place of the current Piazza Colonna and Piazza Montecitorio.

The Innocent Curia was inaugurated in 1696 by giving water to the large fountain located at the end of the large semicircular courtyard. In addition to the courts, the palace was then also the seat of the Governorate of Rome and of the police direction, thus becoming the center of the administrative and judicial life of the papal government.