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- For other palaces with this name, see Palazzo Farnese (disambiguation).
The Villa Farnese is a massive Renaissance construction built circa 1550, opening to the Monte Cimini, a range of densely wooded volcanic hills. It has a five-sided plant, and is built in reddish gold stone; buttress support the piano nobile above, with two floors above again housing an almost complete two storey villa in itself. As a power house at the center of vast Farnese holdings, it has always been more than a villa in the ordinary agricultural or pleasure senses.
The shape of the villa was predetermined by the rocca, the pentagonal fortress foundations it sits upon, which were constructed in the 1520s by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Baldassare Peruzzi. Each face of the pentagon is canted inwards towards its center, to permit raking fire upon a would-be scaling force, both from the center and from the projecting bastions that advance from each corner angle of the fortress. It is thought that the circular central courtyard was also determined by the necessities of the pentagonal plan.
History
The Villa Farnese was commissioned in 1559 by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese a grandson of Pope Paul III who was known for advancing the ambitions of his relations. He selected for his architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, who worked on the villa at Caprarola until his death in 1573. Farnese was a courteous man of letters, however the Farnese family as a whole became unpopular with the following pope, Julius III. Alessandro Farnese decided it would be politic to retire from The Vatican for a period. He therefore selected Caprarola on the family holding of Ronciglione, being both near and yet far enough from Rome as the ideal place to build a country house.
Design
Architecturally the Villa is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture. Ornament is used sparingly to achieve proportion and harmony. Thus while the house stands out in its landscape, the severity of the design is also a complement to it. This particular style, known today as Mannerism, was a reaction to the ornate earlier High Renaissance designs of twenty years earlier.
In 1559 Vignola, the architect chosen for this difficult and inhospitable site had recently proved his mettle in designing Villa Giulia on the outskirts of Rome for the preceding pope, Julius III. Vignola in his youth had been heavily influenced by Michelangelo. His plans as built were for a pentagon constructed around a circular colonnaded courtyard. In the galleried court, paired Ionic columns flank niches containing busts of the Roman Emperors, above a rusticated arcade, a reworking of Bramante's scheme for the "House of Raphael", Rome. A further Bramantesque detail is the entablature that breaks forward over the columns, linking them above, while they stand on separate bases. The interior loggia formed by the arcade is frescoed with Raphaelesque grotesques, in the manner of the Vatican Logge. The gallery and upper floors were reached by five spiral staircases around the courtyard: the most important of these is the Scala Regia ("Royal Stairs") rising through the principal floors.
Outside, the Villa Farnese is approached by steps from the village piazza, a series of terraces beginning with the basement sotteranei excavated from the tufa, surrounded by steep curving steps leading to the terrace above. This basement floor in the foundations appears as a series of buttresses and retaining walls, large heavily grilled doors in the rusticated walls appear to lead into the guardrooms of a fortress, while above them a curved balustraded external double stairway leads to the terrace above. This in turn has a formal double staircase to the principal entrance on the 'Piano dei Prelati' floor. This bastion like floor (appears as a 2nd ground floor) is rusticated, the main door a severe arch flanked by three windows each side, the facade at this level is terminated my massive solid projections.
Above this is the double height piano nobile, five huge arched windows incongruously dominate the facade over the front door, above this sit a further two floors, the numerous windows divided by rusticated pilasters in dressed stone.
Interiors
The principal staircase or Scala Regia is a graceful spiral of steps supported by pairs of Ionic columns rising up through the three floors, frescoed by Antonio Tempesta.
On the piano nobile a series of 12 state rooms are famed for their frescoes by the brothers Taddeo and Federico Zuccari. The frescoes portray the exploits of such worthies as Alexander the Great, Hercules and of course the Farnese family themselves: in the Hall of the Farnese Annals, decorated by the Zuccaro brothers, the Farnese are depicted at all their most glorious moments, from floor to coffered ceiling. Another notable room is the Summer Dining Hall, also frescoed, but with grotto like sculpture too.
Gardens
The gardens of the Villa are as impressive as the building itself. The Villa's fortress theme is carried out in a moat and three drawbridges. because of the pentagonal plan, two facades face the gardens, each with its parterre beyond the moat. The lower garden is reached from a drawbridge from the terrace of the piano nobile. This is a patrerre garden of box topiary, and fountains. A grotto-like theatre was once here. A walk through the woods from here leads to the well known Casino, a small habitable summerhouse. A 'catena d'acqua' (a kind of cascaded rill in a stone basin) flows from the loggia of the casino to the fountains below. The ornate and frescoed casino has its own parterres, rather like a villa in miniature.
Today
Alessandro Farnese died in 1589 bequeathing his estates to relations - the Farnese dukes of Parma. The lights were already dimming in the Villa, the Cardinal's fabulous collection was transferred eventually to family properties in Naples. In the 19th century the villa became for a while the residence of the heir to the throne of the newly united Italy, but by now the lights were barely a flicker.
Today the Casino, and its gardens are one of the homes of the President of the Italian Republic. The empty main Villa, owned by the State, is open to the public. The numerous rooms, salons and halls all with their marbles and frescoes, and the architecture of the great palazzo-like villa are still as impressive and daunting as they were first intended to be.
Reference
- Peter J. Murray, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance London:Batsford) pp 240ff (1963)
External link - Photographs
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Mansions | Farnese | History of Italy | palaces in Italy | Renaissance architecture | 1559 establishments
"Villa Farnese"