Frustratingly, there is only one surviving portrait of Giulia Farnese, whose brother Alessandro Farnese later became Pope Paul III.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Fresco fragment revives Papal scandal

Things get goofy when we arrive at the Palazzo Farnese.

NEWYORKER: Fiasco

It shows a young woman rather wistfully seated in a mountain landscape next to a unicorn - the fabled beast is one of the heraldic emblems of the Farnese family.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Fresco fragment revives Papal scandal

Three of the chairs are copies of the 19th-century original, which came from the Villa Farnese, but the sofas, covered in Smith's own fabric, came from the supremely affordable CB2, as did the made-in-Vietnam concrete coffee tables.

WSJ: Going Modern, Staying Grand

When Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, fled advancing French troops in 1798 he took with him to Palermo some 20 works from the remarkable Farnese collection, his grandmother Elisabetta having been the last of the Farnese line.

ECONOMIST: Parmigianino at the Frick

Hosted by the French ambassador, the Duc de Nivernais, in one of Rome's more flamboyant palaces, Palazzo Farnese (which is still the French embassy today), these extravagant occasions celebrated the long-awaited birth of the French Dauphin's first son.

ECONOMIST: Our books and arts editor at a market for masterpieces