Villa Farnesina

The Villa Farnesina (or the Villa della Farnesina or more simply Farnesina or even Farnésine), via della Lungara, in Rome was built between 1508 and 1511 by Baldassarre Peruzzi in the district of Trastevere for the Sienan Agostino Chigi, banker and treasurer of the pope Jules II.

History

It is acquired about 1580 by the cardinal Alexandre Farnèse, who gave him his current name thus. It was the first residence peerage-book of Rome.

It then passes to the hands Bourbons before becoming the property of the Royaume of Deux-Siciles.

It is saved ruin at the end of the 19th century century by the Spaniard Bermudez of Castro di Ripalta who becomes about it the new owner in 1861 as ambassador of Spain, but work makes some disappear certain coatings from origin and the fitting even of certain parts was modified.

In 1927, Farnesina is acquired by the Italian state: between 1929 and 1942, the Academy of Italy installs its seat there and undertakes there long series of works of restructuring and restorations various.

Maintaining the villa accommodates the Accademia dei Lincei (which counted Galileo among his first members).
It is the seat of the Gabinetto dei Disegni E delle Stampe (Conservatory national of the drawing and the prints).

Structure

Baldassarre Peruzzi, usually gives up in this villa the methods of use, like the false marble and of the architectural elements. It uses prospects painted while painting on the walls for the frescos representing of the rupestral scenes which represent an external space, like sights through the columns and of the vaults.

The U-shaped building, whose frontage is decorated Tuscan pillars of the order supporting a festooned cornice of Putti (cherubs), includes/understands two levels and a loggia on one level opening on a garden by five arches (currently closed frame of glass).

The Loggia was used as scene for the festivals and the stage performances organized by the resident of the places. Many frescos decorate the walls and the vaults. Those of the loggia, is a continuum garden, with the cycle of the history of Love and Psychée , milked texts of Apulée. They are of Raphaël and its pupils (Raffaellino del Colle, Giovanni Francesco Penni, Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine).

In one of the contiguous rooms of the loggia the fresco is the Triomphe of Galathée of Raphaël.

On the first floor, one finds the room of the prospects , painted like a loggia, opened on Roman landscapes between which one sees a sight of Trastevere. In a secondary room, the room to be slept of Agostino Chigi, a cycle of frescos of the Sodoma on the life of Alexandre the Large one with the weddings of Alexandre and Rossane .

In the room of the prospects, are still visible the graffiti of the vandalism of the Lansquenet S of the Sac of Rome of 1527.

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