Villa Farnese

The Villa Farnese in Caprarola is a villa in the style of a palazzo in Fortezza. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Villa Caprarola and should not be confused with the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Farnesina, both in Rome, confused.

First impression

The Villa Farnese was built around 1550 on the southeastern slope of the Monti Cimini, a densely wooded volcanic hills about 60 kilometers north- west of Rome. Your red-gold stone glistens in the landscape, its pillars underpin the Piano Nobile, and only about enthroned with two other floors, the villa itself if the villa Capra ( "La Rotonda" ) was designed in order to fit into the landscape, then became the Villa Farnese built to dominate their environment.

Origin

The Villa Farnese was the Cardinal Alexander Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III. commissioned.

Architecture

The villa is one of the best examples of Renaissance architecture. Ornamentation sparingly used supports the proportions and harmony. The technology based on the style of Mannerism building is stylistically a reaction to the overloaded architecture of the High Renaissance dar. The architect, the Alessandro 1550 chose for these difficult and inhospitable building site, was the Bolognese Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, who strongly influenced in his youth by Michelangelo had been. His plans called for a Pentagon before, which was to be built around a circular enclosed courtyard with colonnade, a unique plan. In the yard in pairs flanking Ionic columns niches with busts of Roman emperors. The gallery and the upper floors are reached by five spiral staircases, including the most important, the Scala Regia, which leads to the main rooms.

From the outside, the Villa Farnese is approached by steps, starting at the Piazza of the village. The series of terraces begins with the basement ( Sotteranei ), which was dug into the tuff, surrounded by steep winding stairs leading to the next higher terrace. This basement appears as a series of pillars and walls, large, heavy and barred doors in the walls seem to lead into the interior of the house, while above them a curved, provided with a parapet double external staircase to the terrace leads on the turn, the double staircase has the main entrance to the ' Piano dei Prelati' floor. This bastion of a similar floor ( the ground floor looks like a second ) is reset, the main access a severe arch, flanked by three windows to each side.

In the double-decker piano nobile is, five enormous arched windows dominate inappropriate the entrance façade, about another two floors, numerous windows broken by recessed piers.

Interiors

The main staircase Scala Regia is an elegant spiral steps, which is supported by pairs of columns in the Doric style, was provided by Antonio Tempesta with frescoes, and through the three floors leads through.

On the piano nobile is a series of twelve state rooms, which are famous for the frescoes of Taddeo Zuccari brothers and Federico Zuccari. The frescoes portray people like Alexander the Great, and of course the Hercules Farnese family itself: in the Hall of the Farnese annals, which was designed by the Zuccari brothers, the Farnese are painted in her most sumptuous moment, from floor to coffered ceiling. Another surprising area is the summer dining room, also with frescoes, but also sculpted grotto similar.

Gardens and Casino

The gardens of the villa are as impressive as the villa itself, the fortress theme of the villa is continued in a ditch and three drawbridges, the gardens adjoin the ditch. The lower garden, where once a grotto -like theater has been, is reached by a drawbridge on the terrace of the piano nobile. A walk through the woods from here leads to the famous casino, a small summer house habitable. A Catena d' acqua (a kind of trickle with cascades) flows from the loggia of the Casino, the fountains below.

The villa today

Alessandro Farnese died in 1589 and left the property to his relatives, the Dukes of Parma. It was quiet in the villa of Cardinal famous collection was brought to the extinction of the Family ( 1731) by the heirs to Naples ( see: Farnese collections ). In the second half of the 19th century, the villa was for a time the residence of the heir to the throne of the young Italian kingdom.

Today, the casino and the gardens are one of the residences of the Italian President. The empty villa, owned by the state, is open to the public. The numerous rooms, lounges and halls, with all its marble and its frescoes, the architecture of large, a palace -like villa are still as impressive and scary, as they should be from the beginning.