Pamphili

Pamphili (or Pamphilj). Italian noble family that assumed an important role in art patronage in Rome when Giambattista Pamphili (1574–1655) became Pope Innocent X in 1644. Conservative in taste, he tended to reject artists who had been favoured by his predecessor Urban VIII ( Maffeo Barberini); most notably, Algardi replaced Bernini as the leading sculptor at the papal court, although Bernini did do some work for Innocent, including the celebrated Four Rivers Fountain in the Piazza Navona. Innocent concentrated much of his patronage on this piazza, in which the family palace stood (it is now the Brazilian embassy). In 1651–5 Pietro da Cortona decorated the ceiling of the gallery of the palace with scenes from the Aeneid (the Pamphili family claimed to be descended from Aeneas); this was Pietro's last major commission as a decorative painter. Innocent's most famous connection with the arts, however, is as the subject of a superlative portrait by Velázquez. His nephew Prince Camillo Pamphili (1622–66) was a significant patron and collector. In 1647 he renounced his cardinalship to marry Olimpia Aldobrandini, heir to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, and in this way the Aldobrandini palace and art collection passed to the Pamphili family. Camillo's own collecting interests lay mainly in contemporary landscape painting (he owned several choice Claudes) and in the work of Dutch and Flemish painters active in Rome. In 1760 the male Pamphili line became extinct and the family's possessions passed to Prince Giovanni Andrea Doria, who was descended from a daughter of Camillo. His family palace in Via del Coiso is now called the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. It still houses the family's paintings—the best privately owned collection of Old Masters in Italy. See also pendant.