Quirinal Palace

The Quirinal Palace stands atop the Quirinal Hill in Rome, begun in 1583 as a summer residence for Pope Gregory XIII and expanded by successive popes over the following two centuries into the largest palace in Rome by floor area. It served as the official papal residence until Italian unification in 1870, after which it became the royal palace of the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy, and since 1946 it has served as the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. The building's long construction history under multiple architects, including Domenico Fontana, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, left it without a single unified architectural style, instead layering Mannerist, Baroque and later Neoclassical elements across its facades and interiors. Its extensive gardens and the adjoining stables, later converted into a gallery space, remain part of the presidential complex today, and a changing of the guard ceremony at its main gate continues as a public event in central Rome.