What Is Near the Galleria Doria Pamphilj

The free ones, which are the good ones

Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, Via del Caravita 8a, two minutes away, open Monday to Saturday 07:30–19:00 and Sunday 09:00–19:00. Andrea Pozzo painted the Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius on the nave ceiling in 1685, and over the crossing there is a 17-metre false dome painted on flat canvas, standing in for a dome that was never built. From the marked yellow marble disc in the floor it is almost impossible to tell from the real thing; walk forward and it flattens in front of you. This is the best free ten minutes in the neighbourhood and the thing I send families to (visiting with children).

Il Gesù, on Via degli Astalli, built 1568–1584 and the first Jesuit church in Rome, where Baciccia’s ceiling runs painting into wooden sculpture and stucco until you cannot say where one stops. Mind the long midday closure that Roman churches keep: October to June it opens Monday to Friday 07:30–12:30 and 16:30–19:30, Saturdays until 20:00, Sundays and holidays 08:30–13:30 and 16:30–20:00; from July to September it runs 07:30–12:00 and 17:00–19:30, Saturdays until 20:00, Sundays and holidays 08:30–12:30 and 17:00–20:00.

Galleria Sciarra, entrances on Via Marco Minghetti and Piazza dell’Oratorio, near the Trevi. A glass-domed courtyard of 1885–88 frescoed by Giuseppe Cellini in full Art Nouveau. It is free and it is also a working office building, so in practice you are looking at office hours and a courtyard that belongs to somebody.

And the Trevi Fountain, six or seven minutes, open air and free at any hour, plus Piazza Venezia itself three minutes away — currently a Metro C construction site, which is its own kind of spectacle.

The ticketed ones

The Pantheon, about 500 metres and eight minutes away, is now ticketed and requires advance online booking, including on free Sundays, and it is open on Mondays. The Vittoriano above Piazza Venezia, about 600 metres, is ticketed and also open Mondays. Palazzo Colonna is a few minutes away but opens only on Friday and Saturday mornings — the two private palaces compared.

Two buildings you are already touching

The church of Santa Maria in Via Lata stands right beside the palace façade on the Corso, and the Collegio Romano, the former Jesuit college, is directly behind the palace — its occupants objected, loudly and unsuccessfully, when Camillo Pamphilj started demolishing the neighbourhood in the seventeenth century. How the palace grew.

One dress-code note, since it trips people up in this exact cluster: Sant’Ignazio and Il Gesù expect covered shoulders and knees. This gallery has no dress code at all.

Start with the gallery, then walk

A reserved 30-minute entry window at Via del Corso 305, 4.7 from 1,910 reviews. Take the first slot of the day, give it 90 minutes, and you are back on the street with the whole of the centro storico in front of you.

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