Frescoed halls of Palazzo Orsini
Only a few specialists know the frescoed rooms of Palazzo Orsini that soon, thanks to the restoration sponsored by the city and to the preparation of the archaeological museum will be open to the citizens.
The halls were built to accommodate Leo X and later became the private rooms of Pope Urban VIII. The rooms were frescoed by important artists, including Paul Bril and Jerome Siciolante from Sermoneta.
The first, for those who enter, is the so-called Room of the Landscapes, which preserves a seventeenth-century coffered ceiling made from Sorìa and a cycle of frescoes representing landscapes, by the workshop of Paul Bril.
Of great importance is also the next room frescoed by Girolamo da Sermoneta Siciolante around the years 1535-55. The represented subject is the life of Adonis.
The following room of hunts, the third and smallest, which preserves an important cycle of frescoes painted by Paul Bril, great Flemish master who settled in Rome with his brother Matthew. The frescoes, made in 1581, continued without interruption, starting from a realistic view of Monterotondo, and includes numerous scenes of hunting in the green hills of Sabina.
The rooms, described so far, lead to a tunnel from the barrel ceiling. The decorations of this environment have been variously attributed to the hand of Giacinto Calandrucci or painters Michelangelo and Nicholas Ricciolini.
The frescoes represent the Time, the Hours and the Fama and reflect the use of the Palace of Monterotondo which residence of entertainment.