078.

Palazzo Mattei

The original medieval house of the Mattei family is in Trastevere. By the Renaissance, however, they owned the entire urban block of houses in Rione S. Angelo upon whose corner thie early 17th century Palazzo Mattei stands. In order to show the extent of this family holding Vasi "demolishes" the building facing Palazzo Mattei and humorously scatters its "remains" in the foreground, with a mason industriously chiseling away at one of the fallen blocks of stone. The result is that the narrow Via dei Funari, (rope makers), upon which the palazzo faces, appears to be a vast urban space merged with the Piazza Mattei on the left. This piazza contains the late 16th century Turtle Fountain (3) by Della Porta and Landini. Facing onto the fountain, and attached to the main palazzo, is the earlier (15th century) Palazzo di Giacomo Mattei (2), which, together with the Palazzo Mattei Paganica (NN 1006) around the corner, was built on the ruins of the late 1st century BC Theater of Balbus. Also facing on Piazza Mattei is the corner of the rambling Palazzo Costaguti (4) beyond which we see the soaring dome of S. Carlo ai Catinari (5) Plate 136. Attached to the right of the main palazzo is the smaller dependency which Vasi identifies as the Palazzi della Famiglia Mattei and now known as Palazzo Caetani (2). Closing the view on the right is the 1560s church of S. Caterina dei Funari (1) by Guidetti, which replaced the nearby early Christian S. Maria Dominae Rosae in the large Crypta Balbi enclosure, of which this is one corner.