Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga

Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga (also known as Palazzo Negroni or Palazzo Galitzin,) is a 16th-century palace in Rome, Italy; it was once the residence of Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga. Today, its late Renaissance street facade bears plaques commemorating two of its residents, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga and the poet Torquato Tasso.

The building is sited at the junction of the via della Scrofa and piazza Nicosia, adjacent to the Collegio Clementino. It was originally built in the late Renaissance style, but was given Baroque embellishments in the mid-18th century.

The ground plan of the building is irregular in order to fully occupy its street corner location. At first glance it appears to be rectangular, but closer inspection reveals that it is in fact an irregular pentagon.

The palace comprises five floors above a semi-basement. Its style is broadly based on Palazzo Farnese; the lower floors exemplifying the architecture of the late Renaissance found in Rome and in villas throughout the Latium. The principal facade comprises five bays. The ground floor is pierced centrally by the entrance to a porte cochere leading to an internal courtyard. The corners of the irregular building are accentuated by quoining, while shallow pilasters divide the five bays from the first floor upwards.

Externally, the ground floor shows banded rustication (very similar to that found in the Roman Palazzo Vidoni Caffarelli, built in 1515 and attributed to Raphael), while the floors above are of rendered ochre ashlar. In the custom of the time, the ground floor was designed for occupation by only horses, servants and domestic offices. Here on the first floor, the piano nobile, were the principal rooms. As in most Renaissance palazzi, the upper floors are reached by a broad stone staircase rising from the cloisterlike inner courtyard, this negated the need for the upper floor's noble occupants to ever visit the menial ground floor rooms.

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