Palazzo Barberini Hidden in the cellars of the rear part of the building, a Mithraeum was found during the construction work of Villa Savorgnan di Brazzà in 1936, dating probably from the second century AD. Palazzo Barberini The Palazzo Barberini () is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. It houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica. The sloping site had formerly been occupied by a garden-vineyard of the Sforza family, in which a "palazzetto" had been built in 1549. The sloping site passed from one cardinal to another during the sixteenth century, with no project fully getting
Palazzo Barberini awarded to Bernini, a young prodigy then better known as a sculptor. Borromini stayed on regardless and the two architects worked together, albeit briefly, on this project and at the Palazzo Spada. Works were completed by Bernini in 1633. After the Wars of Castro and the death of Urban VIII, the palace was confiscated by Pamphili Pope Innocent X and was only returned to the Barberini in 1653. The palazzo is disposed around a forecourt centered on Bernini's grand two-storey hall backed by an oval "salone", with an extended wing dominating the piazza, which lies on a lower level. At