Villa Farnesina

Agostino Chigi, banker to popes and the richest man in Rome, built this villa from 1506 and hired the best painters available: Raphael frescoed the Loggia of Galatea and designed the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, Sebastiano del Piombo and Peruzzi worked on the rest. Peruzzi's Perspectives room paints a colonnade opening onto views of Rome so convincingly that the wall appears to dissolve. Chigi's banquets were notorious: guests reportedly threw the gold and silver plate into the Tiber after each course, though nets had been laid to recover it. Raphael's affair with a baker's daughter allegedly delayed the work until Chigi installed her in the villa.

History

The villa was built in 1506-1510 for Agostino Chigi, a rich Sienese banker and treasurer of Pope Julius II, to a design by Baldassare Peruzzi, perhaps with help from Giuliano da Sangallo, and Chigi brought in Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giulio Romano and Il Sodoma to decorate it; Giovanni da Udine painted the botanical garlands in 1515-1518. The Farnese family acquired it in 1577, which gave it the name Farnesina, and it later passed to the Bourbons of Naples and, in 1861, to the Spanish ambassador Bermúdez de Castro, Duke of Ripalta. It is now owned by the Italian state and houses the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome's long-standing academy of sciences (Wikipedia, Villa Farnesina).

What to look for

• The Loggia of Galatea - Raphael's fresco of the nymph on the sea.
• Cupid and Psyche - a loggia ceiling designed by Raphael and painted by his workshop.
• The Perspectives room - Peruzzi's painted colonnade dissolving the wall.
• The Chigi stories - the banker's banquets and the recovered silver.

When to go

Year-round; the villa opens mornings only on most days with one longer day a month, and closes Sundays except the second of the month. Booking is sensible.

Practical notes

Opening hours are short and mornings only, which catches people out. It is small, about an hour. Photography rules vary by room.

Nearby

Trastevere surrounds it; the Vatican lies north.

Key facts