A Jacobite Gazetteer - Rome

Palazzo Doria Pamphilj

Portrait of King James III and VIII

From as early as 1716 the Doria family had been associated with King James III and VIII. ¹

Their palace, fronting on Via del Corso, houses the Galleria Doria Pamphilj. In one of the state rooms, the Saletta Rossa, is an oil portrait of King James III and VIII by Alexis Simon Belle. ² The oval-framed painting measures 72 cm x 57.5 cm; on the back is the date 1702. ³

The gallery is entered at Piazza del Collegio Romano 2. It is open daily 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. except Thursdays; entrance fee € 8,00.

(Telephone: 39.06.6797323; website: http://www.doriapamphilj.it/).

Notes

¹ Cf. a letter dated March 29, 1716, from Theophilus Oglethorpe (King James' envoy to the Court of Turin) to his sister Madame de Mezieres, Calendar of the Stuart Papers, Historical Manuscripts Commission (London: 1904), II, 46: "The Dorias I am assured of. Let me have a letter for the Duke Doria, and another for Marquis Clemente Doria, one of the richest in Genoa, and to my knowledge a friend, and a kind one to Marquis Balchetchi Doria, who but two days ago assured me that he answered for his whole family to serve King James, so that it was done secretly."

² Alexis-Simon Belle was born in Paris in 1674, and died in the same city in 1734. In spite of the fact that he won the Prix de Rome, he chose not to train at Rome but rather to remain in France. In 1701 he moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye where he worked for the English and Scottish court. He painted at least ten portraits of King James III and VIII, as well as others of his parents and his sister Princess Louise-Marie. Other portraits of James by Belle can be seen in Pesaro, at the Oratorio di San Giuseppe in Urbino, and at the Hôtel Charost and the Scots Collegein Paris.

³ Eduard A. Safarik and Giorgio Torselli, La Galleria Doria Pamphilj a Roma (Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1982), 25.

Image 1 (Portrait of King James III and VIII): Safarik and Torselli, 25.