Marcello Massarenti

Who was Marcello Massarenti?

Don Marcello Massarenti, a Vatican official who helped Pope Pius IX escape from Rome at the time of the Roman republican uprising of 1849, rose to become Almoner of the Pope. In his official position he traveled extensively and amassed a collection of Italian paintings and Roman antiquities especially during the years following the Unification of Italy, when the suppression of many monastic communities and the displacement of many aristocrats from hereditary positions brought a great number of works of art onto the market in Italy, both privately and publicly. He received an honorary knighthood from Franz Josef of Austria and was decorated with the Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia.

His private lodgings were modest, but he rented space for his gallery in Palazzo Accoramboni, Rome, where he welcomed visitors. The palazzo, in the former piazza Rusticucci, was demolished by Benito Mussolini along with the rest of the spina of medieval houses to made way for the expansive via della Conciliazione, leading to piazza San Pietro.