Quirinale Palace - The Corazzieri Hall

The oldest finds on the Quirinale hill are the inhumation tombs from the 9th century BC. Subsequently, in ancient Rome the hill was fortified and in the imperial age the great patrician families of the city built their homes there. In the Middle Ages, the vineyards, gardens and sculptures remained as evidence of the past greatness of Rome, at that time reduced to the size of a large village nestled along the unhealthy banks of the Tiber River. The works that led to the current configuration of the Quirinale Palace began in 1574 with the renovation of the villa then owned by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII, who wanted to build a papal residence on the hill. The works were completed under the pontificate of Clement XII ( 1730-1740 ); after the Napoleonic age, the building became the residence of the kings of Italy in 1879 and in 1948 the Presidential Palace for the newly formed Italian Republic.
The Corazzieri Hall, formerly the Consistorial Hall of Pope Paul V, is rectangular and has a rather high ceiling: from a height of 5.5 metres, the room is entirely decorated with frescoes by Annibale Duranti, the center of the wooden ceiling features decorations in gold on a blue background by Carlo Maderno, with the royal coat of arms installed in 1870.
The general restoration of the room involved the revision of the electrical system, adapted to the most recent European Community regulations. The lighting system maintained the original position of the luminaires inside the perimeter grooves. "Cestello" type luminaires ( iGuzzini ) in a special execution with fixed or adjustable optics, with dichroic halogen lamps ( 50W-12V ) homogeneously illuminate the facing frescoed wall, the wooden ceiling and the transversal walls.