The Rear as an Unintentional Façade. The Farnesina ai Baullari in Rome

The design for Thomas Le Roy’s palace in Rome, although conditioned by the small, irregular site, was conceived as a C-shape plan around a square courtyard, in order to provide a sophisticated, celebrative route leading from the opaque, solid facade in Vicolo dell’Aquila to the loggia at the noble floor. When the building was still under construction, Paul III Farnese promoted urban works that caused the demolition of part of the insula the palace belonged to and exhibited its previously hidden rear on Via dei Baullari, turning it into the most visible part of the palace. From that moment onwards, both the works of the different owners and the graphical interpretations provided by artists from XVII to XIX century contributed to connote the verso as the new recto. While the original experience of the palace is being gradually lost, the rear is elected as an unintentional façade, conditioning the Farnesina’s role and development till the XX century.