ROME -- Millions of tourists visit the Colosseum and Sistine Chapel each year, yet only a tiny fraction ever step inside the gilded halls of Rome’s most exclusive site: the Colonna Palace. The private home-museum hides in plain sight, spread out in four wings over an entire block in the city center. Its owners cling to their cloistered ways, keeping the baroque palace’s paintings, sculptures, busts, tapestries and 76-meter (249-foot) Great Hall far from most prying eyes. Doors open to small groups, 10 people at a time, guided by art historians for a few hours on Friday and Saturday mornings. “We cannot have mass tourism. It is not the wish,” said Elisabetta Cecchini, a restorer at the palace, adding that the reason any visitors are allowed is because art dies in the absence of public appre

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