Palazzo Cornaro, Renaissance palace in Trevi district, Rome, Italy

Palazzo Cornaro is a mannerist palace at the corner of Via della Stamperia and Via del Tritone in the Trevi district. Its long facade on Via della Stamperia repeats the short corner front: a portal flanked by paired columns supports a balustraded balcony, and the cornice rests on corbels carved as female faces carrying baskets on their heads.

Cardinal Luigi Cornaro bought a house near Santa Maria dei Crociferi in 1579 and an adjacent building from Giovanni Giorgio Cesarini in 1582, then called in Giacomo Del Duca, a pupil of Michelangelo. The palace stayed with the Cornaro family until 1628, passed to Olimpia Pamphili in 1647, and in 1777 part of it went to the Apostolic Chamber for Pius VI's Stamperia camerale. From 1871 it housed the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce.

The building is now the seat of the Dipartimento per gli affari regionali e le autonomie of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, where about 200 people work. Its noble-floor meeting room hosts the joint commissions set up by the department and the State-Regions Conference. A plaque on the facade, placed by the Rome governorate in 1939, recalls that Maria of Savoy, daughter of Charles Emmanuel I and Catherine of Austria, died here on 13 July 1636.

The building sits on a busy street in central Rome and is easy to reach on foot. If you want to pass by on the street, you can see the facade and entrance, but be aware this is an active government office.

The palace stands on the remains of the ancient Aqua Virgo aqueduct, which still feeds the Trevi Fountain a short walk away. Look up at the cornice: carved female faces carrying baskets on their heads support the roof's brackets.