ABSTRACT
In the last decade of his life, the aged Cardinal Francesco Barberini funded a substantial renovation of the ground floor apartments of the family palace at the Quattro Fontane. In the north wing, a newly revised fresco program celebrated the erudition and virtues that were the legacy of the Barberini pope, Urban VIII, to his family. The collections of Cardinal Antonio Barberini and, just a few years later, Francesco himself, were installed throughout the apartment, creating a dense physical fabric of images proclaiming the family’s piety, unity, and dignity. Intended for the next generations of Barberini, the multi-faceted project was a demonstration of Francesco Barberini’s pietas, his dutiful care for his family. Learned from his uncle and projected forward into perpetuity, Francesco’s performative pietas proclaimed nepotism an ethical practice, required by the bonds of blood and in the best interests of the stability of the Roman court.
