On a site occupied in antiquity by the Temple of Marcus Aurelius, the medieval buildings on the site were cleared for a structure erected by the Ludovisi (1659) that became the offices of the vicegerente of the vicariate of Rome. To house the general director of the postal service for the Papal States, moved here in 1814, the palazzo was completely rebuilt by Pope Gregory XVI to designs by Giuseppe Valadier carried out by Pietro Camporese the Younger.[2] At Valadier's urging, Camporese added a portico built with twelve elegant Roman columns brought from the ruins of Veii, supplemented with two pairs of columns flanking the main doorway, retrieved from the basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, which burned in 1823.[3]
Name
In 1852[4] it was bought by the rich banker Karl Wedekind, who rebuilt its interiors to plans by G.B. Giovenale. From 1871 the palazzo housed the Kingdom of Italy's Ministry of Education. For a short time in September 1943 until the liberation of Rome, the palazzo was the official base of the Fascisti romani.
Notes
^Giorgio Carpaneto, I palazzi di Roma, Rome, 2004.
^Stefan Grundmann, Ulrich Fürst, The architecture of Rome: an architectural history in 400 presentations, 1998:283.
^Touring Club Italiano, Roma e dintorni, 1965:175, corrected by Grundmann andFürst.
