Madama palate

The Palais Madama is the Roman building where the Sénat of the Republic Italian has her seat.

The history of the current seat of the Senate begins at the end of the 15th century, under the pontificate of the pope Sixte IV, at time when Rome moyenâgeuse city was going to become a modern city. The ground from where emerges the Madama Palate - on which at the time were still visible Roman and medieval vestiges - had belonged during almost five centuries to the monks Benedictines of Farfa. Those yielded it to the French government which, in its turn, gave to the Sinulfo bishop part of the ground ranging between the turns of Crescenzi and the Terms of Alessandro on which the original foundations of the Palate were built. The building was completed in 1505 by the cardinal Jean de Médicis, wire of Laurent de Médicis and future pope Leon X, which made of them the Roman seat of the influential family and one of the centers of the radiation of the humanistic culture. Catherine de Médicis there often remained, Catherine future queen of France and illustrates protagonist of the European political scene at the time of the twenty years which followed the death of her husband Henri II (1559). But that which was to bind its name to the palate was Marguerite of Parma which, remained widowed of its first husband Alexandre de Médicis known as Alexandre the Moor , married in second weddings Octave Farnèse and remained a long time in the Palate: it was whereas this one accepted the name which it carries still today.

With the political fall of the Médicis and the extinction of the house, the palate passed to the hands Habsbourg and later to the pope Benoît XIV, which made the seat of the pontifical government of it. In 1849 the pope Pie IX transferred to it the ministry for finances and the national debt as well as the pontifical post office. On this occasion, various work of restoration was undertaken and in February 1853, the inaugural ceremony of the new offices took place. Twenty years later, the palate sheltered the senate of the Royaume of Italy.

In imaginary popular the history of the women whose nicknames indicate the two palates of Rome and Turin cross and merge at the point to have to make accept the existence of single “a Madama” for the two cities. As we saw, they are actually two different people who incarnate deeply different times: on the one hand, Madama of Rome Marguerite of Parma, natural girl of Charles Quint, which points out the Renaissance, the influence of Médicis and bonds of this family with the church and the empire; in addition, almost a century later, Madama of Turin Christine of France, which incarnates the period when the Maison of Savoy lived a phase of constraint to the France.

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