Villa Medici

Coordinates: 41°54′28.8″N 12°28′58.8″E / 41.908000°N 12.483000°E / 41.908000; 12.483000
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Villa Medici (disambiguation).
Villa Medici
Government of France
Design and construction
Architect(s)Annibale Lippi

The Villa Medici (Italian pronunciation:

Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French State,[citation needed] has housed the French Academy in Rome since 1803. A musical evocation of its garden fountains features in Ottorino Respighi's Fountains of Rome
.

History

In ancient times, the site of the Villa Medici was part of the gardens of Lucullus, which passed into the hands of the Imperial family with Messalina, who was murdered in the villa.

In 1564, when the nephews of Cardinal

Casina of Cardinale Marcello Crescenzi, who had maintained a vineyard here and had begun improvements to the villa under the direction of the Florentine Nanni Lippi, who had died however, before work had proceeded far. The new proprietors commissioned Annibale Lippi, the late architect's son, to continue work. Interventions by Michelangelo
are a tradition.

In 1576, the property was acquired by Cardinal

Cosimo I de' Medici
, sheltered in plantations of pines, cypresses and oaks. Ferdinando de' Medici had a studiolo, a retreat for study and contemplation, built to the north east of the garden above the Aurelian wall. Now these rooms look onto Borghese gardens but would then have had views over the Roman countryside. These two rooms were only uncovered in 1985 by the restorer Geraldine Albers: the concealing whitewash had protected and conserved the superb fresco decoration carried out by Jacopo Zucchi 1576 and 1577.

Villa Medici seen from the Piazza Trinità dei Monti above the Spanish Steps.

Among the striking assemblage of Roman sculptures in the villa were some one hundred seventy pieces bought from two Roman collections that had come together through marriage, the Capranica and the della Valle collections.

Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1587, his elder brother having died, he satisfied himself with plaster copies of his Niobe Group, in full knowledge of the prestige that accrued to the Medici by keeping such a magnificent collection in the European city whose significance far surpassed that of their own capital.[4] The Medici lions were completed in 1598, and the Medici Vase entered the collection at the Villa, followed by the Venus de' Medici by the 1630s; the Medici sculptures were not removed to Florence until the eighteenth century. Then the antiquities from the Villa Medici formed the nucleus of the collection of antiquities in the Uffizi, and Florence began to figure on the European Grand Tour
.

The fountain in 2002.

The fountain in the front of the Villa Medici is formed from a red granite vase from ancient Rome. It was designed by Annibale Lippi in 1589. The view from the Villa looking over the fountain towards St Peter's in the distance has been much painted, but the trees in the foreground have now obscured the view.[5]

Like the

Ingres and Balthus
, until the prize was withdrawn in 1968.

In 1656, Christina, Queen of Sweden was said to have fired one of the cannon on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo without aiming it first. The wayward ball hit the villa, destroying one of the Florentine lilies that decorated the facade.

French Academy in Rome

Main article: French Academy in Rome
Ingres of fellow student Merry-Joseph Blondel
in front of the Villa in 1809.

In 1803,

antiquity and the Renaissance.[citation needed
] The young architect
Auguste-Henri-Victor Grandjean de Montigny undertook the renovation.[6]

The competition was interrupted during the first World War, and

Minister of Culture. The Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Institut de France
then lost their guardianship of the Villa Medici to the Ministry of Culture and the French State.

From that time on, the boarders no longer belonged solely to the traditional disciplines (painting, sculpture, architecture, metal-engraving, precious-stone engraving, musical composition, etc.) but also to new or previously neglected artistic fields (art history, archaeology, literature, stagecraft, photography, movies, video,

art restoration
, writing and even cookery.) Artists are no longer recruited by a competition but by application, and their stays generally vary from six to eighteen months.

Between 1961 and 1967, the artist Balthus, then at the head of the Academy, carried out a vast restoration campaign of the palace and its gardens, providing them with modern equipment. Balthus participated “hands on” in all the phases of the construction. Where the historic décor had disappeared, Balthus proposed personal alternatives. He invented a décor that was a homage to the past and, at the same time, radically contemporary: The mysterious melancholic decor he created for Villa Medici has become, in turn, historic and was undergoing an important restoration campaign in 2016.[7] Work continued under the direction of the previous director, Richard Peduzzi, and the Villa Medici resumed organizing exhibitions and shows created by its artists in residence.

The Academy continues its programme of inviting young artists, who receive a stipend to spend twelve months in Rome, exhibiting their work. These artists-in-residence are known as pensionnaires. The French word ‘pension’ refers to the room & board these, generally young and promising, artists receive. The Villa Medici hosts a number of guest rooms, and when these are not used by pensionnaires or other official guests, they are open to the general public.[8]

Architectural influence

Medici Lions
at the villa's Loggia dei leoni.

Several structures base their style on the villa. Architect

Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida
after the Villa for the hotel's second reconstruction, which took place between 1925 and 1926.

The marble

Royal Palace in Stockholm
in 1700–1704.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Villa Medici at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ^ Haskell and Penny 1981:24 and note.
  3. ^ *Galassi Alghisii Carpens., apud Alphonsum II. Ferrariae Ducem architecti, opus, By Galasso Alghisi, Dominicus Thebaldius (1563), page 27-28 in Googlebooks PDF version
  4. ^ Haskell and Penny 1981:55.
  5. ^ Alta Macadam, Rome (6th edition 1998)) p.172.
  6. ^ Fernandes, Carlos (2002). "Auguste-Henri-Victor Grandjean de Montigny". Só Biografias. Retrieved 2014-02-14.
  7. ^ "Villa medici". www.villamedici.it.
  8. ^ "Italy: The Villa Medici B&B- the poshest Bed & Breakfast in Rome". www.minorsights.com.

References

External links
Preceded by
Villa Doria Pamphili 		Landmarks of Rome
Villa Medici 		Succeeded by
Villa Torlonia (Rome)
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