Villa Borghese is a large landscape garden in the naturalistic English manner in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the second largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 148 acres) after that of the Villa Doria Pamphili. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana (“Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill”), built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the early nineteenth century.
In 1605, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and patron of Bernini, began turning this former vineyard into the most extensive gardens built in Rome since Antiquity. The vineyard’s site is identified with the gardens of Lucullus, the most famous in the late Roman republic. In the 19th century much of the garden’s former formality was remade as a landscape garden in the English taste. The Villa Borghese gardens were long informally open, but were bought by the commune of Rome and given to the public in 1903. The large landscape park in the English taste contains several villas. The Spanish Steps lead up to this park, and there is another entrance at the Porte del Popolo by Piazza del Popolo. The Pincio (the Pincian Hill of ancient Rome), in the south part of the park, offers one of the greatest views over Rome.
Today the Galleria Borghese is housed in the Villa Borghese itself. The garden Casino Borghese, built on a rise above the Villa by the architect Giovanni Vasanzio, was set up by Camillo Borghese to contain sculptures by Bernini from the Borghese collection, including his David and his Daphne, and by Antonio Canova (Paolina Borghese), with paintings by Titian, Raphael and Caravaggio.
The Villa Giulia adjoining the Villa Borghese gardens was built in 1551 – 1555 as a summer residence for Pope Julius III; now it contains the Etruscan Museum (Museo Etrusco).
Other villas scattered through the Villa Borghese gardens are remains of a world exposition in Rome in 1911. The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna located in its grounds has a collection of 19th and 20th century paintings emphasizing Italian artists. Architecturally the most notable of the 1911 exposition pavilions is the English pavilion designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens (who later designed New Delhi), now housing the British School at Rome.
Villa Massimo, short for Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo (Italien: Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo), is a German art institute in Rome, established in 1910 and located in the Villa Massimo.
The fellowship at the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo represents one of the most important awards offered to German artists for study abroad. The award offers residency for one year at the Villa Massimo to ten artists in the middle of their careers, who have excelled in Germany and abroad, including architects, composers, writers and figurative artists.
The founder of this institution was the patron and entrepreneur Eduard Arnhold, who in 1910 acquired the beautiful and extensive property of 36,000 m², previously the suburban villa of the aristocratic Massimo family. Arnhold commissioned the building of the main structure, a large villa which would be appropriate for official events, and ten modern studios with adjacent private residential spaces. He later donated the villa, and its luxurious furnishings, to the Prussian state. Today, the Villa Massimo is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry for Cultural Affairs and Media, of the Chancellery of the Federal Republic of Germany. Following an extensive three-year restoration, the Academy started in 2003 a renewed commitment to nurture culture in Rome and in Italy.
The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French State, has housed the French Academy in Rome since 1803. A musical evocation of its garden fountains features in Ottorino Respighi’s Fontane di Roma.
The fountain in the front of the Villa Medici is formed from a red granite vase from ancient Rome. It was designed by Annibale Lippi in 1589. The view from the Villa looking over the fountain towards St Peter’s in the distance has been much painted, but the trees in the foreground have now obscured the view.
Like the Villa Borghese that adjoins them, the villa’s gardens were far more accessible than the formal palaces such as Palazzo Farnese in the heart of the city. For a century and a half the Villa Medici was one of the most elegant and worldly settings in Rome, the seat of the Grand Dukes’ embassy to the Holy See. When the male line of the Medici died out in 1737, the villa passed to the house of Lorraine and, briefly in Napoleonic times, to the Kingdom of Etruria. In this manner Napoleon Bonaparte came into possession of the Villa Medici, which he transferred to the French Academy at Rome. Subsequently it housed the winners of the prestigious Prix de Rome, under distinguished directors including Ingres and Balthus, until the prize was withdrawn in 1968.
In 1656 Christina, Queen of Sweden was said to have fired one of the cannon on top of the Castel Sant’Angelo without aiming it first. The wayward ball hit the villa, destroying one of the Florentine lilies that decorated the facade.
