La cultura museale agli albori. Nuovi disegni sull’allestimento del Palazzo Apostolico al tempo di Clemente XI Albani: l’Appartamento dei Principi Nipoti

Abstract

The apartment of the grandchildren princes on the third noble level of Palazzo Nuovo in the Vatican was embellished at the
beginning of the eighteenth century with twenty-five preparatory sketches (cartoni), most of them executed by Pietro da
Cortona for the mosaic decoration of the minor domes of St. Peter. The decoration was part of a larger and progressive project
for a museum display in the Apostolic Palace, conceived by Clement XI Albani at the beginning of his pontificate to promote
the enhancement and conservation of the Papal Collections, although exclusively reserved to the limited circle of ecclesiastics,
diplomats and intellectuals with access to the Papal Apartments. A group of five drawings at the Royal Collection of Windsor
Castle, attributable to the workshop of Carlo Fontana, architect of the ‘fabrica’ of St. Peter and superintendent of the Apostolic
Palaces, can be connected to this display. The Vatican experiment, as a whole, is to be considered a first important cultural and
methodological precedent of the more ambitious project undertaken by Clement XII Corsini which would lead to the opening
of the first public museum inaugurated at Palazzo Nuovo in the capital, in 1734.