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# French cannonball of 1849 in the staircase of Cardinal Colonna's palace in Rome
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/sled-nedolgikh-dnei-rimskoi-respubliki-v-1849-godu-pushechnoe-iadro-popavshee-v-lestnitsu-bolshogo-salona-barochnogo-dvortsa-kardinala-dzhirolamo-kolonna/
- Published: 2020-08-19T08:05:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:55:41.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Heritage, Society, Rome

A trace of the brief days of the Roman Republic in 1849: a cannonball lodged in the staircase of the Great Salon of Cardinal Girolamo Colonna's Baroque palace. The shots were fired at random from the Janiculum Hill into the centre of Rome, which the republicans had held for several months. What is more, this ball came from a French gun: Pope Pius XI had summoned French troops under General Oudinot to his aid. The projectile was left where it lay, as a treasured reminder: to some of the return of the republic, to others of defiance of the papal will, to others still of the struggle for civil rights, and to others of France's meddling in internal affairs.