I arrived in Rome with the family, finally. After several business trips and telling them of the opportunities to see here , they wanted to come. Therefore, I obliged and took them all to eternal Rome. It was a very nice family trip and we packed a lot of sights into it. However, I found this monument tucked into another post and really deserves a post of its own, Therefore, here is my take on the Villa Medici of Rome !!! Hope you enjoy it as I.
The Villa Medici is a 16C Italian architectural complex in the Renaissance style, comprising a park and a 7-hectare Italian garden, located on Mount Pincio in the historic center of Rome. It houses the French Academy in Rome and has hosted winners of the Prix de Rome since 1803 to promote and represent artistic creation in all its fields.
The story goes that Cardinal Giovanni Ricci di Montepulciano built the Villa Medici around 1564, on the site of the ancient villa and vast gardens of Lucullus, on Mount Pincio, near the Villa Borghese, the Church and Convent of the Trinity -des-Monts, and the Piazza di Spagna (see posts) , The villa was acquired in 1576 by the wealthy Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici who, until his accession to the Grand Ducal throne of Tuscany in 1587, executed the projects and had himself represented in the room known as “the Muses” in Jupiter reigning over the Arts by the painter Jacopo Zucchi. The arms of the Medici house decorate the garden side façade. In fact, the villa is designed to serve as a showcase for its collection of works of art, which includes antiques , numerous bronzes, some of which are exhibited on the facade, like the Mercury of Jean Bologne and also many paintings. He enriched the 7 hectare park with an Italian-style garden planted with pines, cypresses and holm oaks, and decorated with sculptures. These have now been replaced by casts, the originals having gone to museums. Among these, we note the Niobides and Mercury. At the far north is the studiolo decorated with animal-themed murals. In front of the entrance, a terrace offers a panoramic view of Rome. In 1587, Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici had a fountain placed there, which can be found as the subject of a painting by Camille Corot.
In 1633, during his trial in Rome before the Roman Catholic Inquisition , Galileo lived under house arrest for six months at the Villa Medici. In 1737, at the extinction of the Florentine line, the villa returned to their distant cousin Francis III of Lorraine, of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, new Grand Duke of Tuscany and future Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. His son, the Grand Duke and Emperor Leopold I, decided in 1789 to transfer a large part of the villa’s collection to the Uffizi Gallery or the Florence Archaeological Museum for antiquities.
The old buildings of the French Academy in Rome having been burned down in 1793, Napoleon Bonaparte decided in 1803, after the creation of the Kingdom of Etruria, to install it at the Villa Medici. At that time, the villa and its gardens were dilapidated and completely restored to accommodate the winners of the Prix de Rome whose stay there still takes place today for periods ranging from a few weeks to a year, for remuneration, for the residents of the Villa remaining for a year ,The painter Camille Corot represents the view of Rome in the background of a basin in 1825-1828. This painting is kept at the Museum of Fine Arts in Reims (France),
The official Villa Medici: https://www.villamedici.it/en/
The Rome tourist office on the Villa Medici: https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/french-academy-villa-medici
There you go folks , a wonderful monument and park of eternal Rome. A bit hilly to get there but worth it me think. Again, hope you enjoy the post on the Villa Medici as I.
And , remember for happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 