Key takeaways
- It opens on Friday and Saturday mornings, and on no other morning. The operator puts it in capitals on its own site: open to the public on Friday and Saturday mornings, even on public holidays. Saturday runs 9:15 to 13:15; Friday is guided tours by reservation, free, at 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 in Italian, 9:30 and 10:00 in English and 10:30 in French. Anything else is a private booking. The hours, in full.
- The entrance changes with the day, and this is the most useful fact on the site. Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. Saturday is Via della Pilotta 17. The accessible entrance, for visitors with mobility difficulties, is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. Which door, which day.
- The platform costs about twice the door, and that is worth saying plainly. The operator’s short Saturday ticket is about fifteen euros and its complete ticket about twenty-five; the platform’s equivalents are roughly double at both tiers. Nothing extra comes with the higher price except the booking itself. The two tariffs, with the multiples.
- The listing titled “Guided Tour” gates its guided tour. t699541’s own inclusions read “Guided tour (if option selected)” and “Access to gardens and apartments (if option selected)” — two of its three inclusions are conditional and one of them is the thing in its own title. It is the same price as the plain entry ticket. That listing, read line by line.
- Only 4 of the 19 listings on the palace’s own page are about the palace. The other 15 are four separate Colosseum tours, two concerts, the Olympic Stadium, the Trevi Fountain, the Domus Aurea, the Pantheon, a Vatican tour and a water park on the edge of the city. That is a measurement, not an accusation. All 21, grouped and tabled.
- The most-rated thing on the palace’s page is a Colosseum tour — 89,202 ratings against the palace ticket’s 898, which is 99.3 times as many. That says how the platform files this building. It says nothing about how many people visit it, and nobody publishes that number. Whether it is worth your morning.
What the entry ticket buys, and what it does not
The best-rated listing here is the plain admission ticket, at 4.8 from 898 ratings, and it is the only one on this page that is nothing but this building. Its own page states two inclusions and crosses one thing out; one of the two inclusions is conditional, and that condition is where people get caught.
In the price, in the listing’s own words
- The Colonna Gallery. The listing’s base line is “Colonna Gallery and Gardens entry ticket”, and the gallery is the room the whole visit is built around. The Great Hall.
- The gardens — named in that same base line, on the Quirinal slope, reached across the covered bridges over Via della Pilotta. One reviewer paid, had the time and went home without seeing them because she did not know they were there. What that cost her.
- The Princess Isabelle apartments, but only on one option. The second inclusion reads “Colonna Gallery, Gardens, and Apartments entry ticket (if option chosen)”. If you do not choose that option, you do not get them. What is in them.
- The route the operator publishes — eight named spaces, walked in one sequence, plus the short flight of stairs with the cannonball in it. The cannonball of 1849.
Not in it — and one of these is struck through
- A guided tour. This is the listing’s single crossed-out line. It is an admission ticket and it does not pretend otherwise; reviewers who liked it best say so plainly, one of them in as many words: “No guide was needed.” The ticket, reviewed.
- The audioguide. The operator sells it separately, about five euros on top of either tier, delivered by QR code to your own phone in Italian, English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. The platform’s ticket listing does not mention it at all. The audioguide, and what is announced next.
- Any claim that this is the same ticket as the door’s. Close, and not proven identical: the operator’s cheaper tier covers the Galleria, the Pio pavilion and the gardens, and the platform’s base line names the Gallery and gardens without mentioning the Pio pavilion. Both lists are printed on the tickets page so you can compare them yourself.
- Any morning that is not a Friday or a Saturday. No listing on this page can sell you a Tuesday. The palace opens twice a week and everything else is a private booking made with the foundation. Friday or Saturday.
The eight named spaces, in the operator’s own order
The visit is a sequence, not a set of highlights, and this is that sequence. Two of these stops are not among the eight: the short flight of stairs comes before the Great Hall, and the gardens come after everything.
You start in the Hall of the Colonna Bellica, climb the short flight of stairs where the cannonball is, and come out into the Great Hall, which is the room people came for. Six more named rooms follow, and then the gardens on the Quirinal slope.
- The Hall of the Colonna Bellica — First of the eight. The name is the family’s own device, and the family is named after a place rather than a word — Columna Castle at Colonna, in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome. What “Colonna” means.
- The short flight of stairs, and the cannonball — The operator’s own words: “On the short flight of stairs leading to the Great Hall it is possible to see a cannon ball that landed right there in 1849 during the period of the Roman Republic. It was fired by the French Army from the Janiculum Hill.” Rome’s own tourism authority adds the commander: the French under the orders of General Oudinot. I have never got a group past it without somebody asking to touch it. The cannonball.
- The Great Hall — The gallery was established in 1654 by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, to a design by Antonio Del Grande; after Del Grande died in 1671 the work was integrated by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Johan Paul Schor and a Fontana. It opened in 1700 and the vault was finished in 1702, with the life of Marcantonio II Colonna on it, including the Battle of Lepanto of 1571, where he commanded the papal fleet. Nobody publishes the room’s dimensions — not the operator, not the city, not the encyclopedia — so this site does not print a length. The Great Hall, and the one scene from 1953 that was shot in it.
- The Room of the Throne — Third of the eight, and the operator gives the name and no more. What the name points at is checkable: the family held the office of Prince Assistant to the Papal Throne from 1514 until it was abolished in 2018, five hundred and four years. The operator does not connect the two, and neither will I. The family.
- The Tapestry Room — Fourth. The operator names the room and publishes no inventory of what hangs in it, so this site does not name a set it has not seen. The route, room by room.
- The Yellow Room — Fifth, and the ordering is the point: these are the operator’s names in the operator’s sequence, which is why this list is in that order rather than in the order I would have chosen.
- The Chapel Room — Sixth. A private chapel in a house somebody still lives in — Don Prospero Colonna, born 1956, heads the main line, and Prince Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano, born 1948, is Prince and Duke of Paliano. Who lives there now.
- The Primitive Room — Seventh. The collection includes Bronzino, Tintoretto, Guido Reni, Guercino, Salvator Rosa, Ghirlandaio and Gaspard Dughet, and the painting people come for is Annibale Carracci’s Il Mangiafagioli, the Beaneater. The operator publishes no room-by-room hang, so I will not tell you which wall it is on. The paintings.
- The Embroidery Room — Last of the eight, and the end of the indoor route.
- The gardens — After everything, up the Quirinal slope across the covered bridges that span Via della Pilotta — which is why that street is photographed as often as it is. They are in the base ticket and people still miss them. The quarter around the palace.
That is eight named spaces plus the stairs and the gardens. The Princess Isabelle apartments, with frescoes by Pinturicchio and landscapes by Gaspard Dughet and Jan Brueghel the Elder, are a separate tier at the door and a gated option on the platform, so whether you walk them depends on what you bought rather than on which morning you came. What to see, in this order.
Four things to settle, in this order
Pick the morning first
Friday is a guided visit by reservation; Saturday is the long self-guided morning, 9:15 to 13:15. Everything else about the day follows from this one choice. Friday or Saturday.
Then check the door
Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. Saturday is Via della Pilotta 17. They are on opposite sides of the same building and the wrong one costs you the start of your morning. Getting there.
Decide which tier you want
The short ticket is the Galleria, the Pio pavilion and the gardens. The complete one adds the Princess Isabelle apartments. On the platform the apartments are an option you have to choose. Both tariffs.
Buy at the door, or buy the certainty
The door is about half the platform’s price and takes no booking. The platform costs roughly twice as much and holds you a place on a building open eight hours a week. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. Is it worth it.
The entry ticket, with live dates
The plain admission listing, 4.8 from 898 ratings, which is more than four times the ratings on any other listing about this building. It is an entry ticket: it crosses out the guided tour on its own page and puts the apartments behind an option. Today’s price and the Fridays and Saturdays still open are below.
Three listings about this palace, compared on what they actually say
The plain ticket, the one titled a guided tour, and the one with nothing gated. All three are priced per person. The rows below quote each listing’s own inclusion lines, because the difference between these three is not the price — two of them are the same money.
| Rome: Colonna Palace Guided Tour | The defaultRome: Colonna Palace Entry Ticket | Rome: Palazzo Colonna with Gallery, Apartments & Gardens | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price, per person | €31 | €31 | €48 |
| Its base inclusion, as written | “Entry to Palazzo Colonna” | “Colonna Gallery and Gardens entry ticket” | Galleria, Princess Isabelle apartments, palace gardens and Pio pavilion — four flat lines |
| The apartments | Bundled with the gardens, “(if option selected)” | “(if option chosen)” | Stated flat, nothing gated |
| A live guide | “Guided tour (if option selected)” — the thing in its own title | Crossed out | Crossed out, honestly |
| Rating, and how many | 4.5 from 207 ratings | 4.8 from 898 ratings | 5.0 from 2 ratings |
| The nearest tier at the door | €15, the short Saturday ticket | €15, the short Saturday ticket | €25, the complete Saturday ticket |
| What that works out at | 2.1× the door, for a guide that is optional | 2.1× the door | 1.9× the door |
| What the extra actually buys | A booking, and an option you still have to select | A booking made in advance, and nothing more inside | A booking, and the only listing here with no conditions on it |
| View → | Book this → | View → |
Photo Gallery
The materials, not the monument
Still lifes of the ordinary things this city is made of — travertine, wax, coffee, velvet, wet cobbles and a crate of artichokes. None of them is the palace or anything inside it. Every photograph of the building on this site is somebody else’s work, and it is credited on the photo credits page.
Four listings about the palace, and two that are on its page anyway
The first four are the palace. The last two are a Colosseum tour and a water park, both read off Palazzo Colonna’s own page on the platform, and they are here because that page’s composition is one of this site’s findings rather than a joke at anybody’s expense. The full table of all 21 carries the admission column and prints every exclusion verbatim.
The ticket itselfRome: Colonna Palace Entry Ticket
Titled a guided tourRome: Colonna Palace Guided Tour
Everything, unconditionallyRome: Palazzo Colonna with Gallery, Apartments & Gardens
Private, and priced like itColonna Palace Private Tour
On the palace's pageColosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Guided Tour
On the palace's pageRome: Hydromania Water Park Entry Ticket
Six photographs of the palace, taken by people who were standing in it
This is what Palazzo Colonna actually looks like, and on a Saturday morning you could take pictures like these yourself from the same floor. Each one is somebody else’s work under a Creative Commons licence, credited underneath and linked back to the source. Click any of them to see it full-size.
What people wrote afterwards
Written reviews from the listing pages, and they are here for the concrete detail only. They are not a sample you can read a mood off: of the 188 written reviews across all 21 listings, 184 are five-star, while the listings themselves average between 4.0 and 5.0. A 4.5 average cannot come from a population like that. The star averages on the cards above are the honest measure of what people thought; these are the useful anecdotes. How this site reads reviews.
Brilliant palace worth the visit Only open Friday and Saturday Gardens worth seeing as very relaxing
The Palace is truly a hidden treasure. Paying the extra to see the gardens and the apartment is a must!! We had such a great time and had a lot of fun taking our picture with being able to sit in the chairs and pose by the gorgeous paintings. No guide was needed.
Excellent experience. It’s worth visiting as there are few tourists in the gallery, and there’s a picturesque collection of paintings.
It was a fabulous tour. Claudia had a wealth of knowledge about art and the Palace. We thoroughly enjoyed it.
… my friend was suffering from heat exhaustion and the staff were very attentive to her and offered her assistance from paramedics on sight , they let us take the elevator down to the princess’s apartments to catch up with our group . It was very warm as was to be expected in the middle of June but there was water fountains everywhere with cups attached
A fantastic place, and it’s worth setting aside time to visit it. Inaccurate information from GTG regarding the meeting point and ticket pick-up service. The guide, Klaudia, is a very friendly palace employee with extensive knowledge of the facility and the collections. Tour in English.
Ratings and reviews are the operators’ live GetYourGuide figures. Read our full tour reviews ›
Six things worth knowing before you go
The questions I get asked on the pavement outside, answered from what the operator and the listings actually publish — including the two places where the honest answer is that nobody publishes it.
Which morning should I take?
They are different visits. Saturday is the long one, 9:15 to 13:15, and you can go round on your own or with a guide. Friday morning is guided tours by reservation, free with the ticket, at 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 in Italian, 9:30 and 10:00 in English and 10:30 in French. If you want to stand in front of one painting for twenty minutes, take Saturday. If you want somebody explaining the ceiling, take Friday and book it. Friday or Saturday, in full.
Which entrance do I use?
It depends on the day, and this catches people every week. Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66; Saturday is Via della Pilotta 17. The accessible entrance for visitors with mobility difficulties is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. The foundation answers the phone on +39 06 6784350. Both doors, and how to walk to them.
Is it cheaper at the door?
Yes, by about half, and this is the first site in this series where that is true. The operator sells the short Saturday ticket for about fifteen euros and the complete one for about twenty-five; the platform’s equivalents are roughly double at both tiers. What you are paying the difference for is a booking made in advance on a building that is open two mornings a week — not for anything more inside. The tariff, in a table.
Does the listing called a guided tour include a guide?
Not necessarily, and you have to read its own inclusions to find out. t699541 is titled “Colonna Palace Guided Tour” and its inclusion line reads “Guided tour (if option selected)”, with the gardens and apartments gated the same way. Two of its three inclusions are conditional and one of them is the word in the title. It carries 4.5 from 207 ratings and costs the same as the plain ticket. Read line by line.
Why is there a Colosseum tour on the palace’s page?
Because that is how the platform files this building. I read 19 listings off Palazzo Colonna’s own page and 4 of them are the palace; the rest are Colosseum tours, concerts, the Olympic Stadium, the Trevi Fountain, the Domus Aurea, the Pantheon, a Vatican tour and a water park. The page’s most-rated activity is a Colosseum tour with 89,202 ratings against the palace ticket’s 898. That is a fact about a catalogue, not about how many people come here, and nobody publishes that second number. All of them, tabled.
Who owns it, and how rich are they?
The Colonna family owns it and shows it through the Fondazione Palazzo Colonna. Don Prospero Colonna, born 1956, heads the main line; Prince Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano, born 1948, is Prince and Duke of Paliano. On the second half of the question: no net-worth figure is published by the family, by the foundation or in any filing we could check, so this site does not carry one and does not repeat the ones that circulate elsewhere. It answers what is checkable instead. What can actually be verified, and the family.
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The Palazzo Colonna, explained
Most of the famous buildings in Rome belong to the state, the church or a museum trust. This one belongs to a family, who live in part of it and open the rest for eight hours a week. Nearly everything confusing about visiting falls out of that one fact, so start there rather than with the paintings.
Why a building this good is shut five days out of seven
The Colonna have held the site since the 1200s; the oldest section standing is 13th century, and English Wikipedia puts the family’s tenure at over twenty generations. The gallery was never a museum. Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew Lorenzo Onofrio established it in 1654 as a room in a house, and it is still a room in a house. What you buy is a couple of hours in somebody else’s hallway on the two mornings the family gives up.
The two mornings, and the two doors
The operator sets it out in its own capitals: open to the public on Friday and Saturday mornings, even on public holidays. Saturday runs 9:15 to 13:15, self-guided or guided. Friday morning is guided tours by reservation — free, at 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 in Italian, 9:30 and 10:00 in English, 10:30 in French. Every other day, and every afternoon, is private booking only. There is no back way in on a Wednesday.
Then the part that catches people. The entrance depends on which morning you picked. Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66; Saturday is Via della Pilotta 17. Opposite faces of the same block, and the wrong one costs you the first twenty minutes of a four-hour window. The accessible entrance is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66 on either day. Friday or Saturday takes the choice apart; getting there does the doors.
What the ticket covers, and what the platform is charging for
At the door there are two tiers. The short one, about fifteen euros, is the Galleria, the Pio pavilion and the gardens. The complete one, about twenty-five, adds the Princess Isabelle apartments, where the Pinturicchio frescoes and the Brueghel and Dughet landscapes are. An audioguide is about five on top of either, by QR code to your own phone, in six languages.
Here is the thing this site was built to say out loud: the platform charges about twice the door, at both tiers. That is a first in this series, and it is not a swindle; I will not write it as one. The extra buys a booking made in advance for a building open two mornings a week, which for somebody with exactly one Saturday in Rome may be worth every cent. It buys no extra room. Read the inclusions rather than the titles, too: one listing is called “Colonna Palace Guided Tour” and its own inclusion line says “Guided tour (if option selected)”. Both tariffs, in a table, and every listing with its exclusions printed verbatim.
The room it is all for
Antonio Del Grande designed the Great Hall; after he died in 1671 the work was carried on by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Johan Paul Schor and a Fontana — the city says Carlo, English Wikipedia says Girolamo, and this site names both and picks neither. It opened in 1700 and the vault was finished in 1702, painted with episodes from the life of Marcantonio II Colonna, including Lepanto in 1571, where he commanded the papal fleet. Nobody publishes its dimensions — not the operator, not Rome’s tourism authority, not the encyclopedia — so you will not find a length here. You will find one continuous room built to be seen whole, which is rarer than any measurement. The ending of the 1953 film Roman Holiday was shot in it — the press conference at the close, and no other scene. On the short flight of stairs leading up to it sits a cannonball that landed there in 1849, during the Roman Republic, fired by the French Army from the Janiculum Hill. The Great Hall and the cannonball.
The family, and the question with no answer
Oddone Colonna was elected pope on 14 November 1417 and reigned as Martin V until 20 February 1431, ending the Western Schism. The feud with the Orsini was formally closed by the bull Pax Romana in 1511 and resurfaced anyway. The family held the office of Prince Assistant to the Papal Throne from 1514 until it was abolished in 2018 — five hundred and four years. Don Prospero Colonna, born 1956, heads the main line; Prince Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano, born 1948, is Prince and Duke of Paliano.
The question I get asked most is what they are worth, and nobody can say. No net-worth figure is published by the family, by the foundation or in any filing that can be checked, and this site prints none of those circulating elsewhere, not even to argue with them: naming one still puts it on the page. What can be verified answers the checkable half instead.
What I would do with the morning
Saturday if you want time, Friday if you want somebody talking. Buy the complete tier: the apartments are the half people skip and then regret, and one reviewer on the plain ticket went home having missed the gardens because she did not know they were in it. Come at the start of the window. If the real choice is this or the Borghese, that has a proper answer — is it worth a Roman morning.
Frequently asked questions
When is Palazzo Colonna open to the public?
Friday and Saturday mornings, and the operator states it in its own capitals: open to the public on Friday and Saturday mornings, even on public holidays. Saturday runs 9:15 to 13:15 and can be done self-guided or guided. Friday mornings are guided tours by reservation, at 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 in Italian, 9:30 and 10:00 in English and 10:30 in French. Any other day, and any afternoon, is private booking only. The hours in full.
Which entrance do I use for Palazzo Colonna?
It changes with the day. Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66. Saturday is Via della Pilotta 17. The accessible entrance, for visitors with mobility difficulties, is Piazza SS. Apostoli 66 on either day. The two are on opposite sides of the same building, so the wrong one costs you a walk around it. Getting there.
How much does a ticket to Palazzo Colonna cost?
At the door the operator sells a short Saturday ticket at about fifteen euros, covering the Galleria, the Pio pavilion and the gardens, and a complete one at about twenty-five that adds the Princess Isabelle apartments. The Friday guided tour is about thirty-five, with a reduced rate for FAI card holders, and the audioguide is about five on top of either. On the platform the equivalents cost roughly twice as much. Every tariff, with the exact figures.
Is the ticket on this page the same as the one at the door?
Close, and not proven identical, so this site will not assert it. The platform’s base inclusion is the Colonna Gallery and gardens; the operator’s cheaper tier is the Galleria, the Pio pavilion and the gardens. The platform does not mention the Pio pavilion in either direction. Both lists are printed side by side on the tickets page so you can compare them rather than take my word for it.
Does the Colonna Palace Guided Tour include a guided tour?
Only if you select that option. The listing is titled “Colonna Palace Guided Tour” and its own inclusions read “Guided tour (if option selected)” and “Access to gardens and apartments (if option selected)”. Two of its three inclusions are conditional, one of them is the thing in the title, and it costs the same as the plain entry ticket. It carries 4.5 from 207 ratings. That listing, reviewed.
What is the cannonball in the staircase?
The operator’s own description is the best one: “On the short flight of stairs leading to the Great Hall it is possible to see a cannon ball that landed right there in 1849 during the period of the Roman Republic. It was fired by the French Army from the Janiculum Hill.” Rome’s tourism authority adds that the French were under the orders of General Oudinot. It is still where it landed, on the way up to the Great Hall. The cannonball of 1849.
How big is the Great Hall?
Nobody publishes its dimensions. Not the operator, not the city’s tourism authority, not the encyclopedia, so this site does not print a length or a width. What is documented is when it was made: established in 1654 by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna to Antonio Del Grande’s design, integrated after his death in 1671 by Bernini, Schor and a Fontana, opened in 1700, with the vault finished in 1702. English Wikipedia gives a completion date a year after the city’s, and the sources also disagree on whether the Fontana was Carlo or Girolamo; this site names both and picks neither. The Great Hall.
Was Roman Holiday filmed at Palazzo Colonna?
The ending was. The press conference that closes the 1953 film was shot in the gallery, and that is the whole of the claim: no other scene, and this site does not imply otherwise. It is the single most recognisable thing about the room and it is also about ninety seconds of a two-hour film. The ending, and where the rest was shot.
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