The premises of the Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Foundation, are set in the actual birthplace of the celebrated Renaissance composer. It now contains an internationally renowned Research Centre with an important specialist library and a museum that provides visitors with the opportunity to investigate a fundamental page of Italian sacred music. Palestrina’s works represent the highest stylistic summary of earlier and contemporary compositions and the very pinnacle of Renaissance Sacred polyphony.
The museum, located in the old town, is housed in a three storey 15th Century building bestowed to the G.P. da Palestrina – Centro Studi Palestriniani.(Palestrina Research Centre).
The ground floor, which also has an open air auditorium seating approx. 200, hosts a permanent biographical and iconographic exhibition about the musician, with panels illustrating his life and works and the cultural context in which his art flourished.
On the first floor you will find the Foundation’s scholarly material, a collection of microfilms of the musical sources of Palestrina’s works, an analytical card index of Pierluigi’s own manuscripts ordered according to their opening bars. The large hall (Sala Cingolani) is used for seminars, conferences and small concerts. This part of the house is furnished with antique glass cabinets and furniture, donated by Augusto and Giovanna Barberini, princes of Palestrina.
One room on this floor is entirely given over to portraits (The Portrait Gallery) and there is a room for entertaining containing 17th century furniture. Above the sofa hangs an original oil portrait (a Barberini donation from approximately 1580) and beside it, a reproduction of the earliest of the composer’s portraits. In the niche, there is an original terracotta reproduction of the Palestrina Pietà by Michelangelo, a work by Guido De Angelis (donated by the artist).
The whole second floor is dedicated to the library, containing works of great musical and musicological interest (7,000 volumes) with one entire section on Renaissance culture.
You can admire the remarkable view from the ‘Palazzo’, which dominates the small town and looks out over the Castelli Romani hill towns. The access to the inner courtyard is also suggestive, with its charming hanging gardens.

Galleria fotografica