A project for the new palace of the Italian Parliament, 1883-1890
In the first ’80s of the 19th century the desire to build in Rome a new seat for the Italian Parliament,
which could unite in a single monumental building both the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of
Senate, engaged many of the distinguished Italian politicians, such as Agostino Depretis, Quintino Sella
and above all Francesco Crispi.
The search for a suitable place presented considerable problems of town-planning policy, of relation with
the position of the old city, in full transformation often as a consequence of speculative interests. One of
the hypotheses, developed after Crispi charged two protagonists of monument protection, Luca Beltrami
and Francesco Bongioannini, was to place the building in piazza Magnanapoli, near the Trajan markets,
a joint point between the most monumental part of the ancient Rome and the axis of via Nazionale, one
of the pivots of the modern transformation, a position close to the residence of the King, however quite
separate from it.
