Palazzo Spada, Where Borromini's Illusion Beats the Vatican's Pigna

Everyone wants the Cortile della Pigna at the Vatican Museums: queues, timed tickets, a compact crowd flowing towards the Sistine Chapel. And yet, staying in Rome and crossing the Tiber towards Campo de' Fiori, there's a courtyard that very few seek out and that offers a more intimate wonder. We're at Palazzo Spada, in the Regola district, a sixteenth-century palace that today also houses state institutions and an art collection little touched by the major tourist flows.

The reason it's worth the trip is the celebrated perspective gallery attributed to Francesco Borromini. Looking at it from the entrance, it seems a corridor dozens of metres long ending with a life-size statue. In reality it's a refined optical trick: the passage is far shorter than it appears, the columns shrink progressively and the sculpture at the far end is surprisingly small. It's one of the most elegant Baroque perspective illusions you can see, and here you can often observe it without a crush, perhaps waiting for just a few people ahead of you.

Beyond the gallery, the Galleria Spada preserves paintings and furnishings in the palace's historic rooms, with a slow, quiet pace of visit, far from the mass itineraries. The decorated façades of the main courtyard, with statues and stucco work, tell of the cultured taste of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Rome. It's the kind of place where you can really stop to look, without being pushed along by the current.

To enjoy it at its best, avoid the weekends and the hotter, more crowded months of the city: aim for the shoulder seasons and weekdays, ideally early in the morning. Always check the latest opening hours and visiting arrangements before setting off, because the palace also has institutional functions. Then let yourself be deceived, at your leisure, by Borromini.

How to get there

Palazzo Spada faces Piazza Capo di Ferro, in Rome's historic centre a few steps from Campo de' Fiori, Piazza Farnese and Largo Argentina. The location is very central and can be reached on foot from these squares; by public transport you arrive with the buses running along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and Via Arenula, and with tram 8. The reference airports are Fiumicino and Ciampino.