Maria Kazimiera in Rome
Maria Kazimiera arrived in Rome on 23 March 1699, at the invitation of Pope Innocent XII, who recognised the merits of her husband King Jan III Sobieski, who had died three years earlier. Sobieski's greatest merit for the Catholic Church was his victory at Vienna against the Ottoman Empire, which also resonated in Rome and which, according to the assessment of those in power at the time, halted the Muslim expansion into Europe.

Upon her arrival in Rome, the Queen stayed at the Odescalchi residence in the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli. Two years later, in 1701, she rented Villa Torres (now Villa Malta) located on Pincio Hill. At the same time, she began to use the premises of the Palazzo Zuccari, at the junction of the streets and the Piazza Trinita dei Monti.

Palazzo Zuccari
Palazzo Zuccari was built in 1592 by the eminent artist Federico Zuccari. A painter active in Florence and Rome, he was the author of, among other things, the frescoes of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The palace was intended to serve as an open house, especially for poor artists coming to Rome. It was colloquially known as the House of Monsters ("Casa dei Mostri"), as Zuccari designed an entrance to the garden on the side of via Gregoriana with two windows, in the form of the open mouths of monsters. After the painter's death in 1609, the palace was enlarged, commissioned by Marco Antonio Toscanelli and designed by Girolamo Rainaldi. From 1702 to 1714, the flats were occupied by Maria Kazimiera Sobieska. During the Grand Tour, the palace hosted artists such as Pietro Bracci, Joshua Reynolds, Joachim Winckelmann and Jacques-Louis David. In 1904 it was purchased by Henrietta Hertz and housed her library, which she donated, together with the palace, to the German government before her death in 1913. Since then, the palace building has been home to the Hertziana Library, one of the best libraries and research centres devoted to Italian art.

Arco della Regina and tempietto
Villa Torres and Palazzo Zuccari became Maria Kazimiera's residences in Rome. In the palace the Queen organised her theatre ( un luogo in Forma di teatro ). It came to pass that, in order to connect the two places, in 1702 she obtained permission to build a wooden bridge over via Felice (now via Sistina) called the Queen's Arch ( Arco della Regina ) connecting the third floor of Palazzo Zuccari and Casa Stefanoni, where her father, Henri de la Grange d'Arquien, resided and where the entrance to Villa Torres' garden was located. The bridge survived until 1798 and, in addition to its communicative function, also served as a place for the orchestra during the Queen's famous serenades.

The four-column portico with a balcony (loggia, also called tempietto in the literature), built in 1711, is the only surviving element of the palace. It opens the palace directly onto Trinita dei Monti Square. The tempietto, with its bulging, as it were, wavy beams and balcony, is decorated with the coat-of-arms cartouche of the Republic blending the Eagle and the Pogo, with the heraldic shields of the Sobieski family and the d'Arquien family in the middle. Approval for the construction was obtained from Silvio Maccarani, the Queen's majordomo, on 6 August 1711. The project was probably designed by the eminent architect Filippo Juvarra, who from 1710 was employed by Sobieski as stage designer for the numerous operas ( drammi della musica ) she organised.

The construction of the loggia enhanced the urban development of the square and provided new possibilities for the performances organised by the Queen. Immediately after its construction, Maria Kazimiera used it to organise occasional serenades from the balcony 'to the satisfaction of all the ladies and cavaliers of this city'. The operas and evenings organised by Sobieska were of the highest artistic standard at the time.