A new space for hosting temporary exhibitions opened at Palazzo Barberini on 16 December, with a major show dedicated to Guercino, a leading figure in Italian 17th-century painting.

The additional 1,000-sqm on the ground floor now makes Palazzo Barberini the second-largest venue in the Roman museum circuit after Palazzo Venezia. Part of the area was occupied by the Circolo degli Ufficiali for decades until the military were finally evicted in 2006 after years of litigation.

Born in 1591 in the town of Cento in the Emilia region of northern Italy, as a boy Giovanni Francesco Barbieri became known as