The Hotel
Columbus offers 92 rooms all equipped with mini bar, telephone, TV and
air conditioning. High Speed Internet Access
is available in lots of rooms. For more information about other facilities
available in our rooms, you can visit the page services
of our web site.
Some rooms overlook the inside garden of Palazzo
della Rovere, and some rooms overlook the main street via della
Conciliazione.
A selection
of rooms of different sizes offers perfect backdrops for hosting special
events, meetings, cocktails, conferences etc. Our helpful staff will
be pleased to offer you their assistance at any time, we supply a full
range of latest technical equipment, acoustic and sounds systems, lighting
and furniture.
To arrange a special event and for information please see the Hotel
Columbus Banquet Rooms. alternativel to view the Hotel Restaurant
including our fabulous internal courtyard
garden area click here.
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Minimum Rates 2005 to 2006 |
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single room |
100,00 |
|
€ |
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double room |
160,00 |
|
€ |
| |
double room for single use |
130,00 |
|
€ |
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triple room |
220,00 |
|
€ |
| |
|
| |
Maximum Rates 2005 to 2006 |
| |
single room |
200,00 |
|
€ |
| |
double room |
320,00 |
|
€ |
| |
double room for single use |
260,00 |
|
€ |
| |
triple room |
400,00 |
|
€ |
| |
|
The rates
are per room, per night and include continental breakfast, taxes and
serivices.
Hotel Columbus Roma - A short history of the building.
In 1300,
Pope Boniface VIII with the Papal Bull of 22nd February established
the first Holy Year in the history of Christianity; over 200,000 pilgrims
flocked to Rome from the four corners of Europe. At the time, the area
surrounding St. Peter’s looked completely different. The square
was much smaller, of rectangular shape, and the original Basilica, whose
size was much smaller that the present one, was surrounded by shops,
butcheries, stables, and small dwellings, many of which had large inner
courts used to dry bricks. Indeed, one of the most prominent features
of the area once called Borghi (suburban quarters or roads) consisted
in the numerous kilns where bricks made of clay extracted from the Vatican
or Janiculum hills were fired.
The positive outcome of the first Holy Year induced Popes to proclaim
new ones within periods of time shorter than the 100 years established
by Boniface VIII. It was only with Pope Clement VII in 1525 that Holy
Years were scheduled to take place every 25 years. For this reason,
the Popes wished that pilgrims coming to Rome for the Jubilees could
find in the area around St. Peter’s more comfortable roads, and
palaces more beautiful and modern than those that had been built until
the 1400. For this reason they played such an important role in beautifying
the Eternal City.
The area around St. Peter’s started being radically rehabilitated,
and the Borghi and dwellings around the Basilica up to the foot of the
Vatican Hill were done away with. Several small houses were demolished,
and on the side of the Borgo Vecchio, a narrow street which ran straight
from Piazza di San Pietro to Castel S. Angelo, was built the noble and
great Palazzo of the Della Rovere family. The Palazzo was ordered by
Domenico Della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Clemente and Pope Sixtus IV’s
nephew, and built by architect Baccio Pontelli. Domenico was exceedingly
rich, and had the cathedrals of Cinzano and Rivalba in Piedmont built,
and also supported the reconstruction of Turin's cathedral.
His Palazzo in Borgo, which had started being erected in 1480 and was
finished around 1490, and to participate in whose construction the best
artists of the time had been summoned, rivalled for magnificence and
beauty the most prominent and distinguished roman palaces. The left
wing of the Palazzo had already been built by 1484; according to some
scholars, it is precisely in these premises that the Cardinal witnessed
the donation of the island of Cyprus from Charlotte of Lusignano to
Charles I of Savoy.
The Palazzo was frescoed by Pinturicchio, and it was so beautiful that
in June 1495 Charles VIII chose to dwell here rather than in the Vatican
during his stay in Rome, before proceeding with his military expedition
to the south of Italy.
When Cardinal Della Rovere died (on April 22nd 1501) he bequeathed half
of his Palazzo to the Hospital of the Holy Spirit; the other half had
to be shared between the Chapter of the Vatican Basilica and the friars
of the church of S. Maria del Popolo. After being devastated by the
soldiers of the Valentine during the short pontificate of Pius III,
in 1504 part of the Palazzo was rented by Cardinal Francis Floris (Lloris)
of Valencia. On the following year, it passed on to Cardinal Francesco
Alidosi of Imola, who had a magnificent small chapel built on the furthest
left-end side of the piano nobile. The Cardinal was killed in 1511 by
Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino.
From then on, the Palazzo witnessed a long list of occupants: Cardinal
Luis of Aragon in 1514; Cardinal Francesco Cornaro in 1521, and Cardinal
Giovanni Salviati in 1524. In 1655 the Penitentiaries, an order of fathers
whose task was to confess pilgrims in the Vatican Basilica, bought it
for 14,000 scudi, since their own palace had been demolished by Alexander
VII to build St. Peter’s colonnade. After that the palace was
called Palazzo dei Penitenziari.
In 1338 a Papal Bull by Boniface XII had established the College of
the Penitentiaries to put an end to the wrongs suffered in Rome by foreign
pilgrims, who, in order to communicate with their confessors, were forced
to have recourse to interpreters, and often had to pay them dear money
to induce them to keep what they told priests during confession secret.
The Penitentiaries occupied these premises for over 300 years without
interruption. In 1870, they ceded part of the Palazzo to the School
Regina Margherita, and the changes that at the time the building underwent
no doubt dramatically altered both the architectural structure and the
decorations. With the exception of the Palazzo Giraud-Torlonia still
existing today, located in front of the Palazzo Della Rovere, all the
buildings that constituted the famous Spina dei Borghi were demolished
in 1937 to make room for the long and majestic Via della Conciliazione.
In the period 1943-1945 the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre purchased
the Palazzo from the Penitentiaries, the Municipality of Rome, and two
private citizens.
Godfrey of Bouillon, after freeing Jerusalem, charged a group of Crusaders
who then formed a religious and military order - with the task of guarding
and protecting the Holy Sepulchre. Attacked by the Saladin’s huge
army, after losing Jerusalem, they were forced to leave in 1291 and
return to Europe, where they were protected by kings and princes who
bestowed property and privileges on them. Today, the knights of the
Order still carry out their original religious task, and protect faith
in the Holy Land with actions in favour of local populations and pilgrims.
Since 1950, the Palazzo Della Rovere houses the Hotel Columbus.
At the ground floor level, on both sides of the portal are found two
small 17th century fountains; the right-hand side one is decorated with
an eagle and the Borghese family emblem, the dragon, whereas the left-hand
side one only features a dragon pouring water in the underlying basing;
all is encased in a heavily restored small aedicula. The 16th century
graffiti that once covered the whole façade are now lost, while
the coat of arms of Clemente XIV Ganganelli are still there, in line
with the main portal; the latter, dating back to the late 17th century,
is made of travertine stone and features a depressed arch.
The wing of the palace housing the headquarters of the Order of the
Holy Sepulchre, on the piano nobile still features some of the most
impressive and magnificent rooms in the whole building: five large rooms
decorated by Pinturicchio and his school. The first one is called the
room of The Grand Master, followed by the room of the Seasons or of
the Zodiac, the room of the Prophets and the Apostles, and the room
of the demigods. The latter is probably the most beautiful and best
preserved one in the whole Palazzo, and features a gold-painted wood
panelled ceiling covered with a mock-mosaic painting by Pinturicchio
and his school, made in 1490. Figures were distempered on sheets of
paper glued to supports which were then nailed into the panels, resorting
to a technique close to illuminating.
The coat of arms of Cardinal Domenico, the oak tree, dominates the centre
and the corners of the ceiling. Underneath it, pheasants peck ears of
corn. Last but not least comes Cardinal Francesco Alidosi’s small
chapel, with a magnificent lacunar ceiling decorated with figures from
the cardinal’s coat of arms: eagles, oaks, and the motto “Agite
mortales ocia quos cibus et umbra quercus alit” (Enjoy, thou mortals,
leisure time, made sweeter by food and the oak’s shade) on the
two lunettes on the furthest walls.
The second floor of the Palazzo features two rooms with ceilings frescoed
by Francesco Salviati around the first half of the 16th century for
cardinal Giovanni Salviati. The first room, whose entrance is encased
in a beautiful 15th century marble frame, is today used as the dining
room; it still features a magnificent mirror ceiling wholly covered
with fresco and stucco decorations reaching the trabeation, with four
masks on the corners of the ceiling, candelabra, and the Salviati’s
coat of arms. In the middle, Apollo leads the Sun’s horses.
Hotel
Columbus Roma - Official Company Details Click Here
