Villa Giulia
The Villa Giulia is a former papal summer residence in the north of Rome, which today houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia.
Location and architecture
It stands in an area of Rome, known as Vigna Vecchia and earlier was adjacent to the city walls, an area that lies on the slope of Monte Parioli the Tiber near the Villa Borghese. The current villa is only a small part of the former possessions, which eventually made up of three building complexes. Here, Pope Julius III. build a summer home or a villa Suburbana.
Like all country houses also had the Villa Giulia access towards the city ( on the Roman Via Flaminia ) and a garden behind the house. The villa itself was on the threshold between the urban and the rural world, a mainly Roman conception, which was later adopted in each urban culture of Western Europe. The Casino ( little house ) was built according to plans by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola 1551-1553. Also Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giorgio Vasari and Michelangelo worked here. The Pope invested large sums of money in the equipment of the villa, which is one of the best examples of mannerist architecture.
Vignola's urban front of the building is an ocher yellow two-story facade, in which each floor of the same value was given. It has a richly detailed archway, which continues in its structure on the upper floor, beside using just two windows on the right and left in their midst.
On the back of the building is Ammannati large loggia overlooks from which one the first of three courtyards and has access to the garden and central courtyard: two marble staircases leading into the heart of the house, a Nymphaeum to in the summer to enjoy meals outside. The structure of covered loggias on three levels, decorated with marble statues and balustrades, built around a central fountain, in the cool environment is protected from the scorching sun, the day could stop over. This central fountain, the Fontana Acqua Vergine, is an art in itself, planned and executed by Vasari and Ammannati, showing river gods and caryatids. From the same source of water that feeds the fountain and the Trevi Fountain in Rome is served.
The casino della Vigna ( small house in the vineyard ), as it was formerly known, and his gardens were placed in the middle of vineyards. The participants in the papal celebrations could embark at the gates of the Vatican, they were transported up the Tiber to the private dock of the villa, walks in the garden and meals in the Nymphaeum followed.
History
After Julius ' death, his successor Pope Paul IV confiscated the whole property. The villa has been divided, the main building and parts of the garden were the property of the Camera Apostolica. Another part of the system was left to the nephews of the pope from the Borromeo family.
In 1869, a restoration on the initiative of Pope Pius IX. 1870, the property fell in the dissolution of the Papal States to the Kingdom of Italy. Since the beginning of the 20th century here, the National Museum of Etruscan art is housed, the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia.
The museum was founded in 1889 with the aim to collect the Roman antiquities from Lazio, the southern Etruria and Umbria, unless they are attributed to the Etruscan culture. Their most famous exhibits are the Apollo of Veii and the Sarcofago degli Sposi almost life-size, a funeral monument in terracotta, on which the bride and groom sit back, as if they were at a banquet.
Since 1947 takes place in the Nymphaeum of Villa deciding the winner of the Premio Strega, an Italian literary prize instead.