[1] The Cancelleria was built for Raffaele Cardinal Riario who held the post of Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church to his powerful uncle, Pope Sixtus IV.

Its long facade engulfs the small Basilica di San Lorenzo in Damaso, the Cardinal's titular church, that is to its right, with the palatial front continuing straight across it.

Excavations beneath the cortile from 1988 to 1991 revealed the 4th- and 5th-century foundations of the grand Basilica di San Lorenzo in Damaso, founded by Pope Damasus I, and one of the most important early churches of Rome.

The facade, with its rhythm of flat doubled pilasters between the arch-headed windows, is Florentine in conception, comparable to Leone Battista Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai.

The largest reception room, the Salone d'Onore on the piano nobile, has vast murals in fresco that Giorgio Vasari completed in a mere 100 days in 1547.

They were commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the grandson of Pope Paul III, who was Vice-Chancellor of the church for over fifty years.

At the time when Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni lived there as vice-chancellor, the Palazzo della Cancelleria became an important center of the musical life of Rome.