Chigi Palace

Chigi Palace is a historic building located in the center of Rome between Piazza Colonna and Via del Corso.

Since 1961, it has been the seat of the Government of the Italian Republic and the residence of the President of the Council of Ministers, adjacent to the Montecitorio palace.

The history of the building begins in 1578, when the Aldobrandini family unites, renovating them considerably, some properties that overlook Piazza Colonna to build the palace in their place.

The name of the building is that of a wealthy family of Sienese bankers, the Chigi, who bought it by Agostino in 1659.

Throughout its history the palace was the residence of some of the most important noble families of Rome. On 20 April 1770 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a concert there in the presence of Carlo Edoardo Stuart.

It was then the seat of the embassy of Belgium, the Kingdom of Sardinia, Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In 1916 it was definitively bought by the Italian state. It first became the seat of the Ministry of Colonies and then of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1922, when the position was held by Benito Mussolini, who established his studio at the Deti gallery.

Looking out from his balcony on the corner between via del Corso and piazza Colonna (the so-called Prua d'Italia), he gave the first speeches that he would then repeat from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia. Since 1961 it has become the official seat of the government, first housed in the Palazzo del Viminale.

The palace underwent a restoration towards the end of the twentieth century, which was completed on 7 November 1999. The intervention involved not only the facades, but also the rooms of the presidential office, which President Amato had transferred to another room of the palace. and which for the occasion was re-established in its original location.

On April 28, 2013, during the oath of the Letta government before the President of the Republic, outside the building a man, Luigi Preiti, opened fire on two carabinieri, Giuseppe Giangrande and Francesco Negri, wounding the latter and a pregnant passerby.