Palazzo dei Convertendi

Palazzo dei Convertendi (also Palazzo della Congregazione per le Chiese orientali) is a reconstructed Renaissance palace in Rome. It originally faced the Piazza Scossacavalli, but was demolished and rebuilt along the north side of Via della Conciliazione, the wide avenue constructed between 1936 and 1950, which links St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican City to the centre of Rome. The palace is famous as the last home of the painter Raphael, who died there in 1520.

The palace is located in the rione Borgo of Rome along the north side of Via della Conciliazione. The palazzo's principal facade faces south. The east facade faces Via dell'erba, which separates it from Palazzo Torlonia, another Renaissance building. To the west lies Palazzo Rusticucci-Accoramboni, another Renaissance building demolished and reconstructed in the 1940.

Towards the middle of the 15th century, a house named "della stufa" stood at the northwest edge of the little Piazza Scossacavalli in Borgo. A stufa (from the German word stube) was something between a Roman bath and a modern sauna, often attended by artists who could freely sketch nudes there. In 1500 the house was sold to the apostolic protonotary Adriano (or Alessandro) de Caprineis, of the noble Caprini family of Viterbo. During those years, Pope Alexander VI Borgia (r. 1492–1503 ) was pursuing a project to open a new road between Castel Sant'Angelo and the Old St. Peter's Basilica. This road was named Via Alessandrina after the pope and later Borgo Nuovo, and was officially inaugurated in 1500. People willing to erect buildings at least 5 canne (11 m (36 ft) ca.) high along the new road received special privileges, such as tax exemptions. The Caprini fulfilled this obligation by buying a portion of another house near the stufa and erecting there a small palazzo designed by Donato Bramante. It was unfinished on 7 October 1517, when the Caprini sold it for 3,000 ducati to Raphael. The artist completed the construction, spending there the last three years of his life. He painted in those rooms the Transfiguration, and died there on 6 April 1520.

...
Wikipedia