Palazzo Montecitorio

Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome is the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament, standing on a rise created when the Campus Martius was cleared in antiquity and known afterward as Mons Citatorius. Gian Lorenzo Bernini began the palace for Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, but work stalled after Pope Gregory XV's death in 1623, and it was Carlo Fontana who completed and modified the design under Pope Innocent XII; after Rome became the capital of a unified Italy in 1870, the building was taken over and the Chamber first met there on November 21, 1871. Poor acoustics, extreme temperatures and water damage forced the Chamber to abandon the original hall by 1900, and the architect Ernesto Basile rebuilt the interior in 1918 in the Art Nouveau style, preserving Bernini and Fontana's facade while adding red brick towers, the Transatlantico salon, and a debating chamber lit through a colored glass canopy beneath a frieze titled The Italian People.