Best Palazzo Colonna Tickets
The palace opens to the public 2 mornings a week, so fix this date before the rest of your Rome plan.
Highlights
Tickets & Prices
Two kinds of visit are sold. Saturday morning is the self-guided open house, and Friday morning runs on reserved guided-tour slots in Italian, English and French. On Saturdays, reduced and free categories apply at the door:
- Children under 12 enter free, up to two per paying adult
- The accompanying person of a disabled visitor enters free
- FAI members pay a reduced rate
The tickets sold online:
- Palazzo Colonna entry ticket, covering the gallery and the gardens, with the Princess Isabelle Apartment as a selectable option. Swap your phone voucher for a paper ticket at the info point next to the ticket office.
- Colonna Gallery + Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, both palaces on one booking. The Doria Pamphilj leg reschedules until 24 hours ahead. The Colonna leg is fixed once booked.
- Colonna Gallery + Welcome to Rome, entry plus the 50-minute film at Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 203.
Note:
- Book the entry ticket with the Princess Isabelle Apartment selected. The apartment is a second attraction in its own right, kept exactly as the princess left it in 1984, and the base itinerary walks straight past its door.
- The catch is that the Colonna ticket neither refunds nor reschedules once booked, and with two open mornings a week, a missed Saturday is a missed week.
- The ticket office at Via della Pilotta 17 also sells on the door on Saturday mornings.
Plan Your Visit
| Day | Visit Type | Opening Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday | Self-guided | 9:15–13:15 (last entry) |
| Friday | Guided tours (reservation required) | English: 9:30 & 10:00 Italian: 9:30, 10:00 & 10:30 French: 10:30 |
| Monday–Thursday & Friday and Saturday afternoons | Private tours (reservation required) | By reservation only |
- The self-guided visit is available every Saturday, including public holidays.
- Guided tours on Fridays last approximately 2 hours.
Buses 40, 60, 64, 70, 170 and H stop at Piazza Venezia, a short walk from the entrance. On Saturdays you enter at Via della Pilotta 17. Friday tours enter from Piazza SS. Apostoli 66.
Via della Pilotta 17, 00187 Rome, the Saturday entrance and ticket office. The palace office sits at Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. Visitors with mobility difficulties use the Piazza SS. Apostoli entrance on any open day.
Palazzo Colonna
Via della Pilotta, 17, 00187 Roma RM, Italy · Google Maps
- Short itinerary: the gallery apartments, the Pio pavilion and the gardens
- Complete itinerary: all of the above plus the Princess Isabelle Apartment
- Audio guide, available on Saturdays for a small supplement. Ten languages, delivered through a QR code in your phone’s browser, no app needed. Bring earphones.
What to See & Do
Palazzo Colonna does not feel like a museum. The family that built it still lives in the private apartments, and the gallery is grand and intimate at once, a Baroque state room that is also somebody’s home.
The Great Hall and the cannonball
giuseppemasci.me.com/DepositphotosThis is the room that draws the Versailles comparison, and it is longer than the Hall of Mirrors. Four mirrors painted with flowers by Mario dei Fiori catch the light beneath ceiling frescoes of clashing war galleys.
On the marble stair sits a cannonball, still lodged where it landed during the siege of Rome in 1849.
The final scene of Roman Holiday (1953), with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, was shot in this room.
The picture rooms
giuseppemasci.me.com/DepositphotosThe collection reads like a roll call of Italian painting. Annibale Carracci’s The Bean Eater is the famous one, a warts-and-all portrait of a peasant that later inspired the Impressionists. Bronzino’s Venus, Cupid and a Satyr hangs in the Hall of the Battle Column. In the Hall of the Apotheosis, Benedetto Luti’s ceiling canvas shows the family pope, Martin V, received into heaven.
Look for Vanvitelli’s painted views of Rome, and for two cabinets worth hunting down, one in ebony and ivory by the Steinhart brothers, one inlaid with semi-precious stones. In the Hall of Landscapes, lined with Gaspard Dughet’s rural scenes, a hand-carved miniature of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment hides in plain sight.
The Princess Isabelle Apartment
giuseppemasci.me.com/DepositphotosThe complete itinerary adds the rooms of Princess Isabelle, Lebanese-born, who lived here until her death in 1984. Everything stays as she left it, down to her silent night clock. The rooms feel theatrical, almost Venetian in their extravagance, and hold a collection of small paintings on copper by Jan Breughel the Elder.
During the Second World War she hid the palace’s paintings and furniture from destruction, and it was Isabelle who first opened the palace to the public.
The gardens on the Quirinal Hill
JessIvanova/DepositphotosBridges by Alessandro Specchi connect the palace to garden terraces of citrus pots and Roman sarcophagi, climbing the Quirinal hillside with views over the city. In the fine season, weather permitting, a coffee terrace opens above the Secret Garden.
Did You Know?
- Oddone Colonna became Pope Martin V in 1417. The ceiling of the Hall of the Apotheosis shows him received into the heavens.
- Marcantonio II Colonna led the papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
- The Colonna have lived on this site since the early 14th century, and the family still occupies the palace’s private apartments today.
Insider Tips
- The paintings carry numbers rather than labels, matched to a booklet you carry round. It is clumsy. Take the audio guide, or book Friday’s guided slot instead.
- In Rome on a Friday? The small-group guided tour doubles as a break from the crowds at the city’s big sites.
- There is no air conditioning. Summer visitors bring a fan.
- Allow two to three hours if you add the Princess Isabelle Apartment.
FAQs
Who owns Palazzo Colonna?
The Colonna family. They have held this ground since the 1300s and still live in the palace’s private apartments. Prince Prospero Colonna keeps the public openings going.
Is Palazzo Colonna free to visit?
No. Saturday mornings carry a free tier, though: under-12s (at most two per paying adult), carers accompanying disabled visitors, and licensed guides leading groups.
Palazzo Colonna opening hours: what days is it open?
Friday and Saturday mornings, public holidays included. Saturdays run every week of the year. On all other days the palace opens only for private tours by reservation
Can you visit the Palazzo Colonna gardens?
Yes. Both Saturday itineraries include the gardens. In the fine season a coffee terrace above the Secret Garden opens too, weather permitting.
Is the Princess Isabelle Apartment worth it?
For most visitors, yes. The rooms stay as the princess left them in 1984, and people who know the palace say one visit to them is not enough.
Are Palazzo Colonna and Galleria Colonna the same place?
One building, one ticket. The Galleria Colonna is the Baroque gallery wing inside Palazzo Colonna. On Saturdays both are entered from Via della Pilotta 17.