Palazzo Montecitorio: Façade

Palazzo Montecitorio is presently the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The building was originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the young Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV. However, with the death of Gregory XV by 1623, work stopped, and was not restarted until the papacy of Pope Innocent XII, when it was completed by the architect Carlo Fontana, who modified Bernini’s plan with the addition of a bell gable above the main entrance.