Rome, historic Quirinale palace for sale for 30 million euro

One of the most important buildings in the capital's historic centre is back on the Roman market. It is located a stone's throw from the Quirinale, in the city's institutional heart: a seventeenth-century palazzo boasting 3,000 square metres of interior space, a 614 square metre private garden, and a deconsecrated seventeenth-century church incorporated into the main body of the building.

The building, after having been the seat of the Pontificio Collegio Belga, where Karol Wojtyla (the future Pope John Paul II) lived and studied, makes its comeback with a €30 million sale proposal followed by Lionard Luxury Real Estate.

Its affer history has its roots in the early 1600s, when the Discalced Carmelite Fathers of Spain bought some property on what is now Via del Quirinale to make a convent. The Spanish religious remained there until the French occupation of Rome in 1809, when they had to abandon the monastery. The property then passed to the Sisters Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament until 1839. In 1846, the building was bought and converted into the seat of the Pontificio Collegio Ecclesiastico Belga (Belgian Ecclesiastical College). In 1911, the construction of a small church dedicated to St Anne (later also to St Joachim) was also completed.

The structure consists of five floors above ground, plus a soffitta floor and a basement. The layout is extensive, with numerous rooms originally intended for collegiate life and representation. The deconsecrated church, with a central plan and Greek cross, is incorporated into the main building and has an access from Via del Quirinale. Inside, several scenes painted by Pietro Nelli, one of the most important portrait painters in Rome in the first thirty years of the 1700s, author of the portrait of Pope Clement XI.

Given the unique character of the property, the audience of potential buyers revolves around institutional investors and those linked to the diplomatic world, high-end hospitality groups and international family offices. Indeed, the luxury hotel sector continues to look with interest at the renovation of historic buildings in central locations, although in this case the building is more likely to lend itself to institutional use.