Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome

The palace occupies a broad footprint made up of two principal storeys, with the public entrance level originally formed by a covered arcade and the main reception and administrative rooms set on the upper floor. The walls above the ground floor were constructed in brick and were once faced with travertine cladding, which has been removed in places so that the brick masonry remains visible. The principal façade presents a grand vertical scheme with very tall pilasters and a heavy entablature and balustrade above, while the ground level opens onto loggias framed by a smaller order of columns, giving a clear contrast between the lower open arcade and the enclosed upper rooms.

The central courtyard still displays a concentration of ancient sculpture and inscriptional material. At its centre there was once a cistern that was modified and later covered, and a large marble vase took the place of the original water feature in the early 1500s. On the courtyard’s right side the head, hand and globe of a colossal acrolithic statue of Constantine stand on display, while the left side holds relief panels that represent provinces and trophies taken from the nearby Temple of Hadrian. A marble wall with a large triangular tympanum (triangular decorative panel) and an ornate Corinthian niche framed the place where the Capitoline Fasti were set; those inscriptional fragments were later moved into an interior hall devoted to ancient fasti.

Parts of the ground‑floor porticoes reveal an arrangement of stone beams and square coffered bays, with engaged columns sitting against the walls and half columns elsewhere. Because heavy stone beams have limited bending strength, the building incorporates structural solutions such as relieving arches embedded in the masonry and iron ties across the porticoes to reduce stress on the spans. At the right side of the courtyard a deep brick, pointed-arched arcade opened into adjacent chambers and was supported by granite columns topped with travertine capitals and bases; an external stair once rose along the left wall of the court.

Inside, a monumental stair leads to the sequence of named reception halls on the first floor, where painted cycles, wooden coffered ceilings and decorative marbles survive. Rooms include the Hall of the Horatii and Curiatii, the Hall of the Captains, the Hall of the Triumphs, the Hall of the She‑Wolf, the Hall of the Geese, the Hall of the Eagles, a tapestry room, the Hall of Hannibal, a chapel, and galleries associated with later donors such as the Castellani rooms and the Pinacoteca upstairs. Many important sculptures that once stood outdoors or in exhibition pavilions are now displayed within these rooms or in the newly created glazed exhibition area that occupies the former Roman garden.

Archaeological traces of the Capitol’s ancient temples lie beneath and beside the palace. Massive foundations of the Capitoline temple remain in large blocks of a local greyish building material known as cappellaccio, while the upper parts of the temple were quarried away in later antiquity. An older, archaic shrine attributed to the goddess Mater Matuta was uncovered in the mid‑20th century; that structure included a podium about six metres below the present surface, a mudbrick inner chamber and painted terracotta front decoration with feline figures and a fragment of a Gorgon. Other surviving materials on site include polychrome opus sectile marble panels, for example tiger‑and‑calf panels linked to the basilica of Junius Bassus, and a variety of pavements and sculptural fragments preserved in situ or placed in display within the palace.