• Exceptional level of private access to spectacular palaces, villas, embassies & collections

• Rare opportunity to visit the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel privately

• Our party will be received in several magnificent private palaces & villas including a final dinner in a Roman palace 

• Explore the unprecedented riches of Villa Borghese with works by Caravaggio & Bernini

• Visit based in the very comfortable 3* Superior Albergo del Senato located just by the Pantheon

If all roads lead to Rome, not all organised visits open the doors of Rome’s many private palaces and villas. This visit is an exception as it is principally devoted to a series of specially arranged private visits. Its overriding theme will be to allow you to enjoy a remarkable level of access to a number of Roman addresses and their collections, whilst recreating the perspective of the Grand Traveller from an earlier, more privileged ceremonial world. Over decades of living in Rome, we have built up an unrivalled series of introductions and contacts in the city. This allows us to organise what we believe to be the finest tour of its kind available and indeed, it is an opportunity which you are cordially invited to participate in as our guests.

Our visit will chart the transformation of Rome, the centrality of the papal court and the astonishing patronage the city enjoyed during the Renaissance and the flourishing of the city in the Baroque period as a succession of remarkable popes, cardinals, princes - and the noble families they came from - vied to outdo each other in architecture and the fine and decorative arts. The city’s greatest interiors both intimate and grandiose, secular and non, will be encountered and, by implication, all the great names of renaissance and baroque Rome: Raphael, Michelangelo, Bramante, the Carracci, Cortona, Caravaggio, Bernini and Borromini.

Our chosen hotel is the comfortable 3* Superior Albergo del Senato, which is situated in an excellent location next to the Pantheon in the heart of the historic centre of the city from where much can be seen on foot. We shall also use a series of Mercedes ‘people carriers’ thus ensuring a truly door-to-door service during our week in Rome.

Day 1: Sunday 14 February – We fly from Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino airport arriving late afternoon and continue into Rome to our hotel, the 3* Superior Albergo del Senato. Later that evening we have our first group dinner in an excellent local restaurant – wine, water and coffee are included with all group lunches and dinners.

Day 2: Monday 15 February – We begin at the nearby San Luigi dei Francesci to see the famous Contarelli Chapel with the cycle of paintings by Caravaggio devoted to the life of St Matthew. We continue to Andrea del Pozzo’s Jesuit church of Sant’Ignazio with its fine illusionistic ceiling. After a pause for coffee, we continue to Palazzo Doria Pamphili, where we shall find one of the finest art collections in private hands in Italy with works by Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Bernini and Velázquez to name a few. We continue to Trastevere where after a particularly ‘Roman lunch’, we visit privately the exquisite Villa Farnesina. Built for Agostino Chigi, the rich papal banker and treasurer, it contains some of the finest frescoes of the High Renaissance including works by Raphael and his contemporaries. This evening will be free.

Day 3: Tuesday 16 February – We spend the morning at two important private visits, both major Baroque Palaces in the city. Here, Caravaggio’s most important picture in private hands will be seen by special arrangement. Our second private visit of the day is at Palazzo Colonna, the most magnificent of all Roman palaces, where we shall visit both the State and the rarely seen private apartments. Its frescoed spaces display a vast array of pictures, decorative arts and furniture of astonishing quality. These culminate in the grandest of all grand galleries from eighteenth century Italy.  We pause for lunch (not included) nearby after which we continue to Palazzo Farnese. Now the French Embassy to Italy, it was begun by Pope Paul III and involving several architects, including Michelangelo. Its glory is the most important secular reception room in Italy, the famous Galleria, carried out by Annibale Carracci. We return to our hotel and the evening will be free.

Day 4: Wednesday 17 February – This morning we drive up to the Janiculum Hill to visit Villa Lante al Giancolo, today part Finnish Institute and Finnish Embassy to the Holy See. This sixteenth century delizia contains a very fine loggia with the finest view of the city. Returning to the centre of the city to pause for coffee, we visit by very special appointment the finest eighteenth-century villa complex in Rome widely acknowledged as containing the most important collection of Roman antiquities in private hands in Europe, if not the world. We break for a group lunch near our hotel after which much of the afternoon will be free for private explorations. In the late afternoon, we travel to the Vatican City to spend the early evening in The Vatican Museums to see the Sistine Chapel and other highlights of the papal collections including the Belvedere Courtyard and Raphael’s Stanze. On our return to the hotel, the remainder of the evening will be free.

Day 5: Thursday 18 February – We begin at Palazzo Savelli Orsini spectacularly adjoined to the Theatre of Marcellus to visit by special arrangement the diplomatic rooms of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta’s Embassy to the Holy See. After a coffee break, we travel to Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome’s finest museum of antiquities with spectacular frescoes, mosaics, bronzes, sculptures and Livia’s famed Winter Dining Room from Augustus’ villa at Prima Porta. Following lunch (not included) we visit privately the remarkable Palazzo della Cancelleria. Built by the cardinal nephew of Pope Sixtus IV from 1485, what is still the Vatican’s Apostolic Chancellery, was lavishly frescoed in the mid sixteenth century by Perin del Vaga and Giorgio Vasari. This evening will be free.

Day 6: Friday 19 February – Our morning is spent in the northern districts of the city. We begin at France’s Embassy to the Holy See, Villa Bonaparte, which we shall visit privately. Built by a Papal Secretary of State in 1750, this fine villa was acquired by Napoleon’s sister, Pauline, as her Roman residence. The villa’s placement and understated interiors are elegantly delicate. Following a coffee break, we continue to the nearby Villa Borghese which contains Rome’s finest art collection, including all of Bernini’s early sculptural masterpieces such as Apollo and Daphne and Pluto and Proserpina. It has marvellous paintings by Raphael, Titian and no less than six major paintings by Caravaggio. We return to our hotel where lunch (not included) and the remainder of the afternoon remain free for private explorations. We meet in the early evening where we shall be the guests of a Roman marquis at his noble family’s private sixteenth century palazzo, built by Giacamo Della Porta and containing frescoed interiors together with an important private collection of Roman and Florentine paintings. He will also host our final gala dinner in the family’s Meissen Room - a truly memorable evening.

Day 7: Saturday 20 February – Our final morning of visits begins at Santa Maria della Vittoria to see Bernini’s iconic Ecstasy of St Teresa. We continue towards the Quirinal Hill visiting Borromini’s Baroque masterpiece, the church of San Carlo alla Quattro Fontane, and a little further long, Bernini’s masterpiece, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale. We conclude opposite the Quirinal Palace to visit by private appointment the Casino dell’Aurora Pallavicini. Located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi to view Guido Reni’s influential fresco the Aurora. After some free time for lunch near our hotel (not included), we continue to the airport for our return flight to London Heathrow.

Price £3970 per person (2 sharing a room) Without flights £3735pp Deposit £575pp  Single Supplement £470 (Double Room for Sole Use) £375 Single with Pantheon View (two rooms only) £975 DSU with Pantheon View, subject to availability

Room Upgrades Pantheon View £330 per room (sharing), subject to availability

Hotel 6 nights with breakfast 3* Superior Hotel Albergo del Senato

Flights British Airways (subject to change )

BA558 Depart London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 1355 arrive Rome Fiumicino (Terminal 3) 1735

BA557 Depart Rome Fiumicino (Terminal 3) 1750 arrive London Heathrow (Terminal 5) 1935

Price includes 2 dinners & 2 lunches with water, coffee & wine, all entrances, including private visits, all local transfers, entry fees, gratuities & city tax, the services of James Hill and local guides where applicable

Not included Travel to/from Heathrow, 4 dinners and 3 lunches

Please note our tours generally involve a significant amount of standing and walking, sometimes across uneven ground, or over cobbled streets, or up and down steps and inclines. We do not have an upper age limit for participants, but we require you to have a level of fitness which does not affect other participants' enjoyment of the tour. Please also note that many palaces, gardens, villas, museums and galleries have limited seating and perhaps do not have lifts. You should be able to walk at a reasonable pace and/or stand for at least twenty minutes without aid or requiring a rest. If you are in any doubt, please do contact us for advice on the tour’s suitability for you.