Close to the Etruscan Arch, on the site long occupied by family homes, Marquis Giuseppe Antinori (1677-1745) began construction of a new Palace in 1737, designed by the Roman architect Francesco Bianchi. After Giuseppe's death, his son Gerolamo completed the project in 1758 under the guidance of the Perugian architect Pietro Carattoli.
The late Baroque architecture of the building is inspired by Borrominian solutions and takes cues from Roman examples such as Palazzo Doria Pamphili on the Corso, especially in the division of the facade. The main front, facing Piazza Grimana, is spread over three levels and ends with an attic floor; it is divided by twelve windows, set on double cornices and framed by pilasters. The entire decorated wall surface is made with exposed brickwork, while the central projection is in travertine, a material also used to frame the windows, creating a refined color effect. At the center, a large portal opens between a pair of Doric columns resting on a tall base and supporting the balcony above.
Particularly striking is the mixed-line corner, a true connecting element with the surrounding space, which can be seen from several vantage points around the city in all its formal elegance and constitutes one of the building’s most prized features; according to Bianchi’s design, a small fountain was originally planned for the ground floor niche here, but it was never actually built.
The interiors are richly decorated in the rocaille taste with stucco; large shell valves open at the corners of the atrium, which is also embellished with paired columns and two busts of divinities within oval frames. On the second floor, a painted decoration begins from the two entrance antechambers, which are also adorned with wall canvases dated 1762, depicting landscapes and ruins by an uncertain author. In the first of five adjoining rooms, the theme of Time is developed, represented by the elderly Saturn accompanied by his traditional attributes, namely the hourglass and the ouroboros (the snake biting its own tail). The theme continues in the other rooms, where the Four Seasons are depicted within large trompe-l’oeil frames.
Spring is depicted as a female figure with bunches of flowers, Summer with cherubs carrying ears of grain, Autumn with Bacchus among cherubs and clusters of grapes, and Winter, shown as an old man in front of a brazier, warming himself while icy winds blow towards him. The fifth room concludes the cycle by repeating in the center the motif of winged cupids with the three roses of the Antinori coat of arms; the monochromes on the frame still allude to the Four Seasons. The entire decorative scheme was executed by Pietro Carattoli himself together with Nicola Giuli and Francesco Appiani, a notable quadraturist of the time.
The Antinori family, one of the families that enlivened the cultural life of Perugia, lived there until 1855, the year in which they sold the palace to Pietro Martinori, who bought it without ever living there, intending to later make a profit from it after making some improvements. To this period also dates a decoration carried out by Domenico Bruschi in 1862, celebrating National Unity with the Allegory of Italy with the Savoy shield and the Albertine Statute, in a mezzanine room on the first floor that would later become the study of Senator Romeo Adriano Gallenga.
In 1874, the palace was sold to Romeo Gallenga, eldest son of the renowned journalist and writer Antonio Gallenga, who purchased it in view of his marriage to Mary Stuart Montgomery. The faux stucco decoration on a gold background in today's Goldoniana Hall, originally conceived as a ballroom, dates to this period in the palace's history. It was painted by Perugian artist Matteo Tassi, who drew inspiration from Renaissance models such as the ceiling of the Collegio del Cambio.
Along the molding, the initials of the two spouses (“MS” “RG”) are repeated several times. At the center of the ceiling, two cherubs represent dawn (with a torch), dusk (covering his face), and the god Apollo with his chariot drawn by four horses. In monochrome medallions, the twelve zodiac signs are depicted, and in four octagons, Venus and Diana, Mars, and Mercury on their respective chariots. The rich ornamental scheme is made even more precious by three neo-Gothic stained glass windows crafted in Francesco Moretti’s workshop, bearing the coats of arms of Romeo Gallenga and Mary Stuart.
The present name is due to the desire to commemorate the presence of Carlo Goldoni in Perugia. The playwright’s father was, in fact, the physician of the Antinori family, and Carlo, still a teenager, performed in a play, “La sorellina di Don Pilone,” in a different room, the oval hall, which is still remembered in the old plans of the pre-existing building.
Subsequently, the Palace became the seat of the Royal University for Foreigners and would be adapted to its new use with the obligation to preserve the name of the Gallenga family. The construction of the grand staircase leading to the second floor (1927-1928) dates back to this period in the building’s history.
In 1935, Frederic Thorne Rider, a wealthy Californian businessman who particularly appreciated the University’s contribution to relations among peoples, offered a large sum for the completion of the palace, to which other substantial donations collected from various sources were added. Thus, the wing facing Via del Maneggio was added, built according to the eighteenth-century designs that already envisioned its elevation. In this part of the expansion, the impressive Aula Magna was created.
An initial project signed by Dino Lilli proposed a space inspired by the late Baroque forms of the palace, but at the behest of the then superintendent Achille Bertini Calosso, a radical change was made by setting up the space “according to contemporary taste.” With an essential Italic style tied to the dictates of fascism, the great hall features a coffered ceiling, Trani stone windows, walls clad in royal gray marble, and dominating it all in bronze letters is the Virgilian motto ANTIQUAM EXQUIRITE MATREM (Aeneid III, 96).
Gerardo Dottori, the main proponent of Futurist aeropainting in Perugia, was then entrusted with creating the large mural at the back, The Light of the Ancient Mother, a work conceived in 1937 to illustrate and complete the unified iconographic scheme of the room. The mural depicts Aeneas on his ships looking at the dome of St. Peter's and the Colosseum—a direct allusion to the Lateran Pacts of 1929—from where roads and aqueducts depart, crossing green expanses. In the foreground are five male figures at work constructing; the man depicted at the far left was originally given the features of Mussolini, which Dottori himself later altered to a generic male face after the fall of the Regime.
Along the walls are bas-reliefs by Enrico Cagianelli, The Four Cardinal Points, symbolizing the directions all leading to Rome; by Bruno Arzilli (Sciences, Figurative Arts, and Philosophy); and by Tommaso Peccini (History and the Lyrical and Dramatic Arts). On the entrance wall, Gracco Mosci created the three overdoors with the Fascio Littorio and the Savoy Coat of Arms in the center and, on the sides, Eagles in flight, symbolizing the spread of Italian culture throughout the world.
Text by Prof. Maria Rita Silvestrelli