Portico with Borromini's frieze

The National Academy of Saint Luca has its current seat in a palace once belonging to the Carpegna family, near the fountain of Trevi. The building owes its fame and its good fortune to the work of Francesco Borromini who transformed the 16th century Palazzo into what it is today. First under Ambrigio’s commission, and then under the cardinal Ulderico Carpegna, Borromini modified the edifice that had already been enlarged and redefined in the early 1600s by Pietro Eschinardi.The changes made over the course of the XVIII and XIX centuries transform the building into a rentable palace, later a convent, than an office building. Nevertheless, Borromini’s intervention is still visible in the portico on the ground floor which opens onto via della Stamperia and the Fountain of Trevi and in the helicoidal ramp that connects the ground floor to the first and the second. To get to the ramp it is necessary to pass a portal, richly decorated with stuccos and located on the axis of the central entrance. The ramp that connects the ground floor to the first and the second.