The Quirinal Palace known in Italian as the Palazzo del Quirinale or simply Quirinale in Rome, Italy. It is one of the three current official residences of the President of the Italian Republic. It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of the seven hills of Rome in an area colloquially called Monte Cavallo. It has housed thirty Popes, four Kings of Italy and twelve presidents of the Italian Republic.The Quirinal Palace was selected by Napoleon to be his residence par excellence as Emperor. In the foreground the Fontana dei Dioscuri. Pope Sixtus V in 1588, had the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux statues, from Constantine I of Rome s Baths, moved to the piazza and included the large Obelisk which had been moved from the Campus Martius in the design. Sometime between, that original fountain was lost, and, in 1818 a new one, which can be seen today, was commissioned by Pope Pius VII and was designed by Raffaele Stern using an ancient granite Roman shell that had been found in the 16th century supported on top of a large basin. It was sited in front of the two statues with the obelisk between them.
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