Villa Lante al Gianicolo | |
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General information | |
Location | Rome |
Coordinates | 41°53′35.14″N12°27′38.51″E / 41.8930944°N 12.4606972°E Coordinates: 41°53′35.14″N12°27′38.51″E / 41.8930944°N 12.4606972°E |
Villa Lante al Gianicolo is a villa in Rome on the Janiculum Hill (Gianicolo). It is a summer house designed by Giulio Romano in 1520-21 for Baldassare Turini, as one of Romano's first independent commissions after the death of his master Raphael. The site was believed to have been that of the house of the Roman poet Martial, and the new villa was built on the same footprint as the surviving ruins, with a spectacular view facing Rome. [1] Today, the property is owned by the Republic of Finland through Senate Properties, and the building houses the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae and the Embassy of Finland to the Holy See.
The site is on the edge of the flat top of the Janiculum Hill, which here begins to slope steeply down terraces, and the large loggia built facing the view is on the same level as the front door on the other side of the house, which is reached by some gentle steps from the entrance courtyard. But below the loggia there is a considerable drop to the ground, and after a narrow garden terrace, another sharp drop to the next terrace below. To the side of the house a larger garden on a flat terrace also gives splendid views; unlike the house itself this is open to the public. [2]
Turini was a Papal official (the "datary") who was a close friend of Raphael, and supervised the building of his tomb in the Pantheon, Rome. Raphael would no doubt have been the architect if he had lived longer, and may have made plans for it before his death. The building repeats many features of the Villa Madama, which was further advanced by Raphael's death, and also taken over by Giulio Romano. [3]
Romano made the whole building suggest lightness and elegance to exploit the ridge-top position and overcome the rather small Roman footprint. The orders are delicate, with Tuscan or Doric columns and pilasters in pairs on the main floor, and extremely shallow Ionic pilasters above, whose presence is mainly conveyed by a different colour. Alternate loggia openings are heightened by arches above the entablature. Romano's willingness to play with the conventions of the classical orders is already in evidence; the Doric here has guttae but no triglyphs on its narrow entablature. The volutes of the Ionic capitals of the entrance facade are repeated in the window surrounds between them: "The canonic orders here begin to be treated visually as independent from their structural purposes, and this liberation offered the architect new expressive possibilities." [4]
There are extensive frescos and decoration in stucco in the rooms, carried out by Raphael's workshop team under the supervision of Giulio Romano, with Polidoro da Caravaggio probably playing a leading part. These had subjects from Roman history designed to appeal to Pope Leo X, who died in 1521 before they were completed. Turini lost his job in the brief reign of Pope Adrian VI (1522–23), and they were not completed until he resumed it in 1523. [5] Other parts of the interior decoration, including the Neoclassical reliefs, date from a redecoration at the beginning of the 19th century.
One of Martial's Epigrams, which is now inscribed on a tablet in the loggia, describes the view from his house (which in fact seems to have been on the Quirinal Hill): "Hinc septem dominos videre montis et totam licet aestimare Romam" ("From this point you can see the seven hills and appreciate Rome in its entirety"). [6] In fact this would be true of a number of points on the hill.
The view of the city was one of the most famous, and recorded by many artists. Giorgio Vasari made his Grand View of Rome from there, or very close by, though he slightly adjusted the slopes at the sides to expand what is actually visible from there, as did Giuseppe Vasi's Prospetto dell’alma città di Roma visto dal Monte Gianicolo, a famous large etching (1765) of the view. J. M. W. Turner did a drawing with watercolour in 1819. [7]
The villa came into the ownership of Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere, Duke of Bomarzo, during the 17th century; he also owned the Viterbo Villa Lante. The Lante family became impoverished by the early 19th century and had to sell the villa. Later owners include the German archaeologist Wolfgang Helbig, in the late 19th century. The southern elevation of Castle Goring, a magnificent country house in Sussex, England, is thought to be modelled on the Villa Lante. [8]
An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the architectural orders are the styles of classical architecture, each distinguished by its proportions and characteristic profiles and details, and most readily recognizable by the type of column employed. The three orders of architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in Greece. To these the Romans added, in practice if not in name, the Tuscan, which they made simpler than Doric, and the Composite, which was more ornamental than the Corinthian. The architectural order of a classical building is akin to the mode or key of classical music; the grammar or rhetoric of a written composition. It is established by certain modules like the intervals of music, and it raises certain expectations in an audience attuned to its language.
The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of columns. Originating in the western Doric region of Greece, it is the earliest and, in its essence, the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above.
The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.
In classical architecture, a giant order, also known as colossal order, is an order whose columns or pilasters span two storeys. At the same time, smaller orders may feature in arcades or window and door framings within the storeys that are embraced by the giant order.
The Basilica Palladiana is a Renaissance building in the central Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza, north-eastern Italy. The most notable feature of the edifice is the loggia, which shows one of the first examples of what have come to be known as the Palladian window, designed by a young Andrea Palladio, whose work in architecture was to have a significant effect on the field during the Renaissance and later periods.
Giulio Romano, is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-century style known as Mannerism. Giulio's drawings have long been treasured by collectors; contemporary prints of them engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi were a significant contribution to the spread of sixteenth-century Italian style throughout Europe.
Villa Madama is a Renaissance-style rural palace (villa) located on Via di Villa Madama #250 in Rome, Italy. Located west of the city center and a few miles north of the Vatican, and just south of the Foro Olimpico Stadium. Even though incomplete, this villa with its loggia and segmented columned garden court and its casino with an open center and terraced gardens, was initially planned by Raphael, and highly influential for subsequent architects of the High Renaissance.
The Janiculum, occasionally the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among the proverbial Seven Hills of Rome, being west of the Tiber and outside the boundaries of the ancient city.
Palazzo del Te or Palazzo Te is a palace in the suburbs of Mantua, Italy. It is a fine example of the mannerist style of architecture, and the acknowledged masterpiece of Giulio Romano. Although formed in Italian, the usual name in English of Palazzo del Te is not that now used by Italians. The official modern name, and by far the most common name in Italian, is Palazzo Te. The English name arises because the art historian, Vasari, calls it the "Palazzo Del T", and English-speaking writers, especially art historians, still most often call it "Palazzo del Te".
Villa Lante is a Mannerist garden of surprise in Bagnaia, Viterbo, central Italy, attributed to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola.
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A gutta is a small water-repelling, cone-shaped projection used near the top of the architrave of the Doric order in classical architecture. At the top of the architrave blocks, a row of six guttae below the narrow projection of the taenia (fillet) formed an element called a regula. A regula was aligned under each triglyph of the Doric frieze. In addition, the underside of the projecting geison above the frieze had rectangular protrusions termed mutules that each had three rows of six guttae. These mutules were aligned above each triglyph and each metope.
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The Italian Renaissance garden was a new style of garden which emerged in the late 15th century at villas in Rome and Florence, inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, and intended for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the enjoyment of the sights, sounds and smells of the garden itself.
Italian garden typically refers to a style of gardens, wherever located, reflecting a number of large Italian Renaissance gardens which have survived in something like their original form. In the history of gardening, during the Renaissance, Italy had the most advanced and admired gardens in Europe, which greatly influenced other countries, especially the French formal garden and Dutch gardens and, mostly through these, gardens in Britain.
Michelangelo Maestri was an Italian artist of the 18th century who died in Rome in 1812. His finest compositions are based on motifs from antique frescos discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum and from designs by Raphael or his pupil Giulio Romano. His work became very popular and often purchased by European travelers during their Grand Tour.
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Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, also known as The Finnish Institute in Rome, is an academic institution that supports research in the humanities, particularly in relation to ancient history and Italy. The institute was inaugurated on 29 April 1954, and is based at Villa Lante, a Renaissance-era villa in Rome.