The oldest use of the site was in the 3rd and 4th centuries when there was Jewish catacombs, no longer visible. From then on little was done until 1797 when Torlonias, a wealthy French family bought the land and commissioned architect Guiseppe Valadier (who designed Piazza del Popolo) to build the Villa. The Torlonia family occupied the entire complex themselves until 1925 when Mussolini (a family friend) asked if he could make it his residence as well. Prince Torlonia obliged and Mussolini and his family moved into the Casino Nobile, moving the Prince the smaller Casina delle Civette. Mussolini lived in the Villa until his downfall in 1943 at which point the Americans used the Villa as allied headquarters in Rome. After 1945 the building was abandoned and fell into great disrepair. Ceilings caved in, painted chipped away, statues were looted. Eventually the city bought the property and in 1978 the grounds of the Villa were turned into a public park, although the buildings were closed off. Restoration on the main house finished in 2006 and it has been open to the public since then.
The main building, the Casino Nobile, is three stories and has many different influences within it, but is primarily neo-classical. Alongside Valadier, Antonio Canova was commissioned for sculptures to decorate various rooms. The main floor centers around the ballroom, probably 40 feet by 60 feet, with columns dividing off two sides to from a square in the center. Above the room is a space for an orchestra and the acoustics of the room are fantastic, if you stand in the very center and hit the floor with your foot reasonably hard it echoes considerably. I'm sure a loud "echoooo" call would as well, but it was a pretty crowded day so I decided against that. Four large chandeliers hang down in the center, they come down very far and in my opinion make the room feel much smaller than it is, the ceiling is two stories, but they chandeliers hang down to the level of the first floor. Maybe it makes the space more intimate in a party setting.
Originally all the walls on the ground floor were painted but the paint has been lost because at one point they were wall-papered over and when they tried to take the wallpaper off the paintings below came off as well. The one room on the main floor that still has the original paint is the bathroom. Under the Torlonia family there was no full bathroom, just a room with a large tub in it, and that room was later converted into a small chapel. When they made the change tapestries were hung thus preserving the paintings below.
On the first floor (second in the American sense) you can see Mussolini's bedroom, with all the furniture still in it, his wife's bedroom (they slept in different rooms), the main dining room and a few smaller rooms, the purposes of which are not known exactly. Each bedroom was painted to look as if it was covered in draperies, silver for the man's room, gold for the woman's. Originally the paintings would have covered the whole room, floor to ceiling, but the paint on the walls did not survive and now only the ceiling work is visible. The main dining hall is called the 'Hall of Alexander' and is decorated with paintings depicted the life of Alexander the Great. This was done by prince Torlonia, whose first name was Alessandro, to associate his name with greatness.
The second floor (third in America) was the servants and children's quarters. Today it houses a permanent exhibit of the Roman school of artists from the period between WWI and WWII. All the art is very dark and in many cases proportions and perspectives are skewed, reflective of Italy at the time. There are a few interesting pieces, but in general I wasn't a fan. Far more interesting for me, not necessarily artistically, but historically, are the paintings on the wall in one of the children's bedrooms that were done by an American soldier stationed there between 1943-45. One of the two walls shows a man sitting on a beach under a palm tree with a guitar in his lap, a lay around his neck and woman in a bikini top and hula skirt behind him. Certainly a glimpse of where the soldier wished he was instead of war torn Italy at the end of a long bitter fight.
The Casina delle Civette is behind a small hillock, thus making it invisible from the main house, to the left hand side of the complex. Originally modelled after a Swiss-style cabin, the fanciful house is decorated with beautiful stained glass in every corner, like this swan, located in the guest bathroom. When Mussolini moved into the main house the Prince Torlonia himself moved into the Casina delle Civette along with his family. While it may look incredibly out of place in Italy, the house is quite charming. The steep slanted rooff is used in Switzerland to keep snow from accumulating, obviously not a concern in Rome where it snows about once a decade.
1 comment:
It looks beautiful!
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