Restauro e riuso di Palazzo Colonna Barberini di Palestrina (RM)

This paper is meant to show the internal interventions realized between 2015 and 2016 to restore the private area of the Colonna-Barberini Palace, owned by Prince Benedetto Barberini. The interventions concern two of the four floors of the building: the two contiguous and independent buildings on the ground floor and the apartment above them on the first floor. The methodological approach of the restoration project is based on historical studies, survey and direct analysis of the architectural building to understand its development. This “backwards reading” has emphasized a very much stratified view of architectural phases starting from the late Republican age (2nd century BC) through the Middle Ages until the modern period to the well-known restoration after the war damage. During the work in progress a considerable collection of walls and floors surfaces have been brought to light and they provide documentary evidence of a stratified architectural process, such as the monumental back wall in opus incertum of the ancient Temple of Fortuna or some parts of the floor made up of limestone tiles and polychrome inserts found under the ground floor. Great interest has been given to many windows and doors frames, previously covered with modern plaster, which provide important clues on how spaces where planned and how the different levels of the palace were connected. The restoration work, represents a critical approach of the restoration which shows the formal and historical value of the monument, bringing to light hidden surfaces and joining them with the plain surfaces of the renewal.