Villa Lante
Villa Lante is a
Villa Lante did not become well known until it passed to Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere, Duke of Bomarzo, in the 17th century, when it was already 100 years old.
Architectural design
The Villa Lante is formed by two casini (houses), nearly identical but built by different owners in a period separated by 30 years. Each square building has a ground floor of rusticated arcades or loggias which support a piano nobile above. Each facade on this floor has just three windows, alternating round or pointed pediments. Each window is divided by pilasters in pairs. An upper floor is merely hinted at by small rectangular, mezzanine type, windows above those of the piano nobile. Each casino is then crowned by a lantern in the summit of the pantiled roof. These elaborate square lanterns too have pilasters, and windows both real and blind.
Each of these casini, in their severe
It appears that work commenced in the late 1560s on the right-hand (as one enters) casino. The area selected for the development was an existing walled hunting ground, known as barco.[2] It is thought that Gambara commissioned Vignola to design the project (the villa is only attributed to Vignola), and begin the work and the design of the gardens for which the villa was to become famous. The first casino and upper garden were quickly completed, but work was then suspended for the remainder of Gambara's lifetime.
Gambara died in 1587 and was succeeded as
Garden design
The gardens of the Villa Lante feature cascades, fountains and dripping
The Quadrato is a perfectly square
In the first of the ascending
On the next (third) terrace is a large and long stone table, with a central channel with water flowing to keep the wine cool. At the back of this terrace, are large sculpted
On the next upper terrace are yet further fountains and grottos and two small casini called the Houses of the Muses, the sides of which frame the large Fountain of the Deluge that terminates the main axis of the garden. A roughened texture has been given to the sides of these small buildings to harmonise with the natural rough rock of the Fountain, and water conduits set in their eaves (and operated by a remote switch) project jets of water to complete a visual ensemble known as the 'theatre of the waters'. The main facades of these small casini, like their grander relations on the lower terrace, feature Serliana loggias articulated by Ionic columns, suggesting they might have been designed by Vignola. They bear the name of Cardinal Gambara engraved on the cornices. One casino gives access to a small secret garden, a garden of hedges and topiary, with a line of columns creating an air of an almost melancholic nature.
A perspective plan of 1609 shows a wooded area of walks and vistas to obelisks, plus a maze which has since disappeared.[3]
Twentieth century
Following the demise of Lante's last cardinal owner in 1656, the villa passed to the family of Duke Ippolito Lante, in whose family it remained for many generations. In the 19th century the family, revived by an American heiress Duchess, (a daughter of Thomas Davies of New York[5]) still lived at Lante in some style: the Gambara Casino was lived in by the ducal family and the Montalto was reserved for their guests.
In 1944 the gardens and casini were heavily damaged by Allied bombing after the fall of Rome. In the late 20th century the Villa was acquired by Dr.
Notes
- ^ Coffin 1979, p. 140.
- ^ Aben & de Wit 1999, p. 88.
- ^ a b Thacker 1985, p. 101.
- ^ Coffin 1979, p. 343.
- ^ Sitwell 1961, p. 48.
Cited literature
- Aben, Rob; de Wit, Saskia (1999). The Enclosed Garden. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. ISBN 9064503494.
- Coffin, David (1979). The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691039429.
- ISBN 0-600-33843-6.
- ISBN 0520056299.
Further reading
- Attlee, Helena (2006). Italian Gardens - A Cultural History (paperback). London: Frances Lincoln. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-7112-3392-8.