‘Una colonia tutta francese: l’Accademia di Francia in Palazzo Mancini’

The article reviews the way the Accademia di Francia in Rome used and transformed the Palazzo Mancini, which was its seat for roughly eighty years, from 1725 to 1804. The ‘Accademia di pittura, scultura, architettura e musica’ had been founded by Jean-Baptiste Colbert on the instructions of Cardinal Giulio Mazzarino in 1666. After various changes in location between the Gianicolo and Sant’Andrea della Valle, the French institution was eventually installed in the Palazzo Mancini in Via del Corso. This was a building of great interest, yet little known, a late work of the architect Carlo Rainaldi, who entrusted its execution to the young Sebastiano Cipriani (1686-1690). The long and distinctive presence of the Accademia di Francia in the Palazzo Mancini played a role of great significance in the building’s history. Charles Poerson and Nicolas Wleughels filled the posts of director and co-director of the academy since the early months of 1725, while the duc d’Antin was the superintendent of buildings of the crown. The superintendent and director were in fact the main protagonists in the administration of the building, and from a study of their respective correspondence the author has elucidated the salient events in the history of the Palazzo Mancini during this period. The analysis is mainly based on Italian and French archival sources and is correlated with largely-unpublished iconographic material. At the centre of Roman and French current affairs for almost two centuries, and one of the buildings most frequented by Roman high society in the eighteenth century, the Palazzo Mancini is now the property of the Banco di Sicilia, which has transformed it into its head office in Rome. Since then it has curiously remained ‘ a’ l’écart’ of the interest of historians.