If you read us regularly, you are definitely familiar with Pasquino, the talking statue located near Piazza Navona that, through his invectives, satires and commentaries (the famous Pasquinate) — all rigorously seasoned with a hefty dose of humor — outlined the popular history of the capital for many centuries.

One of his most famous Pasquinate, “quello che non fecero i Barbari, fecero i Barberini,” (“what wasn’t done by the Barbarians, the Barberini did”) – more on it in just a handful of lines – is etched in our memory and is as traditionally Roman as the Colosseum and laundry hanging out of a Trastevere balcony.