The Biblioteca Hertziana (Via Gregoriana 28, Rome, at the top of Via Gregoriana, the street that descends from the Trinità dei Monti church to the Spanish Steps, in the Villa Zuccari, the 16th-century palazzo decorated by the Mannerist painter Federico Zuccari whose grotesque frescoes cover the main hall and the entrance vestibule) is the Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome: the German research institute (the Bibliotheca Hertziana was established in 1913 from the private collection of Henriette Hertz, the German-Jewish art patron who donated her Rome library and Villa Zuccari to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, predecessor of the Max Planck Society, to become a permanent art history research institution) maintains one of the three or four finest specialist libraries for Italian art history research in the world, with approximately 300,000 volumes covering Italian art from antiquity to the present, with particular depth in the Roman Baroque and the 16th-century Italian painting traditions.
The Hertziana building (the Villa Zuccari. Via Gregoriana palazzo whose specific architectural distinction is the exterior door (the "Porta dell'Inferno", the Hell's Door, the entrance to the garden wing whose frame is shaped as a monstrous face with the door opening as the gaping mouth, designed by Federico Zuccari c.1590 as a piece of Mannerist architectural wit) and the interior frescoed halls decorated by Zuccari with the grotesque and mythological program of the late 16th century Mannerist decorative tradition) was renovated and extended by the Spanish architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg in the 1990s-2000s, adding the modern reading room tower while preserving the 16th-century villa core.
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Biblioteca Hertziana: Library and Building
The Federico Zuccari Frescoes
The Zuccari frescoes (the original 16th-century decoration of the Villa Zuccari entrance hall and the main reception room, the grotesque program of mythological figures, architectural frames, and the specific Mannerist figure vocabulary of Zuccari's Roman period) are accessible to researchers who use the library. The exterior "Porta dell'Inferno" (the monstrous face door on the garden side of the building, visible from Via Gregoriana approach) is the most specific architectural detail of the Hertziana building exterior: the door frame carved as a screaming face, with the door opening between the creature's teeth, is one of the best Mannerist architectural jokes in Rome and a detail that the thousands of tourists who walk up Via Gregoriana to the Spanish Steps pass without noticing.
Researcher Access
The Hertziana reading room (the modern extension, the Baldeweg tower with the open-stack reading room and the specialist reference collection) is accessible to researchers with a verifiable scholarly purpose (doctoral candidates, established researchers, and advanced students): register online through bibliotheca-hertziana.mpg.de with an institutional affiliation and a description of the research project. Approval is typically provided within 5-7 working days. The reading room operates Monday-Friday 9:00-18:00. The physical card catalogue (the old card index for the pre-1980 collection, maintained alongside the digital catalogue) is one of the most complete specialist art history card catalogues in existence.
Q&A: Biblioteca Hertziana
Can I visit the Hertziana building as a tourist?
The interior (reading rooms, frescoed halls) requires researcher accreditation. The exterior is freely accessible: Via Gregoriana facade of the Villa Zuccari and the garden wing with the "Porta dell'Inferno" door are visible from the street. The Hertziana occasional public events program (lectures, exhibition openings, and the periodic "open days" during Rome heritage weeks. Notte dei Musei, Giornate Europee del Patrimonio) provides the access points for the non-researcher visitor who wants to see the frescoed interior. Check the Hertziana website for the public events calendar.
Internal Links
- Biblioteche Storiche Roma: Angelica e Hertziana
- Zuccari e il Manierismo Romano: Dal Vaticano alla Villa
- Trinità dei Monti: La Scalinata e la Via Gregoriana
- Ville Rinascimentali Roma: Le Biblioteche dei Mecenati
- La Porta dell'Inferno di Zuccari: Da Non Perdere
- Roma Accademica: Le Istituzioni di Ricerca
- Ricerca Artistica Roma: Dal MAXXI all'Hertziana
