Drinking iced coffee in the Palazzo Doria Pampilj

Whilst in Rome this year, I visited the Palazzo Doria Pampilj - I was drawn in from the Corso by a glimpse of a porticoed courtyard - I stepped into a calm shadowy space - there were shapely trees to sooth the eye - lines of high arched windows pierced each floor of the palazzo -

Members of the della Rovere family had once lived here - you could see their coat of arms - I thought of their rivalry with the Borgias - I imagined sumptuous feasts on gold plates, daggers slicing silk -

I walked through a silent gallery hung with mirrors - I thought that if I lingered there, I'd see all the faces the mirrors had reflected -

The walls of the salons were covered from floor to ceiling with oil paintings - I was unsettled by the sexiness of the Caraveggio - I stared for a long time at the portrait of Innocent X - I was afraid of him - I sensed a terrible power in that knowing gaze -

There were rooms hung with red silk, opening off each other like Chinese Boxes - I was made breathless by the luxury of the furnishings -

I lost all sense of time wandering through the galleries of the palazzo - I loitered in salons, staring upwards at the panels of painted ceilings - I climbed broad staircases very slowly, surrounded by still, warm, air -

At last, by chance, I found myself in an elegant cafe, on the ground floor of the palazzo - a fountain played in an alcove, the water issuing from the mouth of a great bronze fish - slim girls in black served iced coffees and delicate pastries - oil paintings of flowers and grandees lined the walls -

I put down my audio guide - which I had used very sparingly - I sipped my iced coffee in its slender glass - outside was the noise and wonderful craziness of the city - a mixture of antiquity and modernity - the bright sunlight dazzling the living and the ghosts alike -