Palazzo Farnese

Palazzo Farnese is a prominent High Renaissance building in Rome, which currently houses the French Embassy in Italy.
"The most imposing Italian building of the sixteenth century", according to Sir Banister Fletcher, this palace was designed by Antonio da Sangallo (1484-1546). Construction began in 1517, commissioned by Alessandro Farnese, who had been appointed as a Cardinal in 1493 at age 25 . Work was interrupted by the sack of Rome in 1527. The building was redesigned in 1534 and 1541, modified under Michelangelo after Sangallo's death in 1546 onwards, adjusted for the papal nephew Ranuccio Farnese by Vignola . Several main rooms were frescoed with elaborate allegorical programs including a series of frescoes on Hercules, and The Loves of the Gods by Annibale Carracci. For generations the room with Herculean frescoes (Sala d'Ercole) housed the famous sculpture from Greco-Roman antiquity known as the Farnese Hercules. Other works from the family collection of classical sculpture were also housed in the building. The Palazzo Farnese houses the great library of the Ecole Française de Rome, concentrating especially on the archeology of Italy and medieval Papal history.