La nobiltà effimera di un cardinale. Il conte Guido Pepoli, la sua residenza romana nel Palazzo Orsini di piazza Nicosia e la sua raccolta di arazzi

Abstract

On the basis of new documents, this essay gives an account of the twenty years that Cardinal Guido Pepoli (1560 –1599) spent in Rome between 1579 and 1599. Coming from a noble family in Bologna, Pepoli continued to use the title of “conte” even after his promotion to cardinal in 1589. The ambitions of the still young prelate were made clear by his takeover and renovation of the Palazzo Orsini on the Piazza Nicosia, which served as his residence from May 1582. Pepoli’s rise and costly court life came to a dramatic end in 1595, though, when his fortune collapsed under the burden of excessive debt and he was forced to sell almost all of his property in Rome. At his early death in January 1599, however, Pepoli still owned a large collection of valuable tapestries; it was, in a way, a token of his former prestige. The final part of the essay is devoted to a thematic analysis of various tapestry cycles, most of which have disappeared.