A true jewel of the Roman Baroque, the Galleria Colonna was commissioned in the mid 1600s by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna. It was inaugurated by Lorenzo Onofrio’s son, Philip II, in 1700. The original project is by the architect Antonio del Grande; it was then integrated by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Paolo Schor and Carlo Fontana in the last decade of the 1600s.

From the very beginning, the Gallery was conceived as a large boardroom, which was to celebrate the victory of the Christian fleet over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The commander of the Papal fleet, Marcantonio II Colonna, is depicted numerous times throughout the vault of the Great Hall of the Gallery and in the Room of the Battle Column.