The Pamphilj and the Doria: Who These People Were

Innocent X, his nephew, and the two Olimpias

Three corrections in one paragraph, because guidebooks get all three wrong. Olimpia Maidalchini — born in Viterbo on 26 May 1591, died at San Martino al Cimino on 27 September 1657 — was the pope’s sister-in-law, not his sister: she was married to his elder brother Pamphilio. Contemporaries recorded that “when offices fell vacant at court, nothing was decided without her good pleasure”, and Rome called her la Papessa. Her son Camillo Pamphilj was the pope’s nephew, not his brother. And the second Olimpia in the story is a different woman entirely: Olimpia Aldobrandini, whom Camillo married after renouncing the cardinalate on 21 January 1647.

That marriage is why the collection looks the way it does. It brought the Aldobrandini pictures in, to a building that had been the Palazzo Aldobrandini. Innocent X left the palazzo holdings to Camillo and in 1651 established the gallery through a fideicommissum, a legal device meant to keep the collection together forever. Three and a half centuries later it is still together, which is a decent strike rate for a legal device. Algardi’s white Carrara marble portrait of Olimpia Maidalchini is in the collection, and so is the Velázquez of her brother-in-law — the portrait everybody comes for.

Enter the Genoese

The Doria are not Roman. They come from Genoa, from the Doria di Oneglia branch, descended from Aitone Doria, who fought for the French at the Battle of Crécy; Admiral Andrea Doria is of this house. In 1671 Anna Pamphilj married Giovanni Andrea III Doria Landi, and when the Roman Pamphilj male line ended in 1760 their descendants inherited the fiefs and the titles. In 1763 Prince Andrea IV adopted the combined surname. Four years later, in 1767, he renovated the palazzo for his marriage to Princess Leopoldina Maria of Savoy — and the inventory drawn up that same year is still the plan the pictures hang to. Which is why the walls look like that.

The modern family

Princess Orietta (1922–2000) was the last head of the family in the direct line, and she opened the gallery to the public. In 1958 she married Commander Frank George Wignall Pogson of the British Royal Navy, who took the Doria Pamphilj name by deed poll and who in the 1950s modernised the gallery, rewiring and re-flooring it. Their two children, both adopted and both born in England, are Prince Jonathan (b. 1963) and Gesine (b. 1964), who took guardianship after Orietta’s death in 2000 and manage the properties jointly. Jonathan has two children, Emily (b. 2006) and Filippo Andrea (b. 2007); Gesine married Massimiliano Floridi and has four daughters. In 2009 Gesine challenged the inheritance rights of Jonathan’s children and a Rome court declined the case in 2010, after which the succession proceeded. Since 2013 the assets have been held by the Doria Pamphilj Trust. What the Trust holds.

And they are still here. The gallery’s own site describes the Private Apartments on the piano nobile as inhabited by the descendants of the family, and Prince Jonathan has said in print: “The inheritance I most enjoy is the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, where I live in Rome, and the art collections.” He is also the voice on the audio guide you collect at the desk — which is the strangest and best thing about this place.

Walk through what they kept

Reserved entry to the four wings and the state rooms, 4.7 from 1,910 reviews. The commentary recorded by the present owner is included with admission, subject to availability, and collected at the desk on Via del Corso.

Frequently asked questions