Roman Gardens

Fülszöveg

Mid-sixteenth-century Rome was home to a great number of nobles and cardinals, and one of their great pleasures was the creation of elaborate villas and gardens in the surrounding region of Lazio. This spectacular volume brings together twelve of those remarkable projects, many of which are closed to the public and shown here for the first time.
Far more than places of retreat from the city, these villas had lofty intellectual and cultural aspirations and were designed by some of the most eminent practitioners of the day. Two intertwined themes characterize many of these sites: re-creation of the outside world in order to express power and withdrawal from the outside world for seclusion and peace. Simultaneously, the gardens and villas both recalled traditions of antiquity and set the stage for fiiture gardens throughout the world.
The Roman elite followed a very old tradition. The patricians and aristocrats of ancient times—including the emperors Nero, Tiberius, and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Mid-sixteenth-century Rome was home to a great number of nobles and cardinals, and one of their great pleasures was the creation of elaborate villas and gardens in the surrounding region of Lazio. This spectacular volume brings together twelve of those remarkable projects, many of which are closed to the public and shown here for the first time.
Far more than places of retreat from the city, these villas had lofty intellectual and cultural aspirations and were designed by some of the most eminent practitioners of the day. Two intertwined themes characterize many of these sites: re-creation of the outside world in order to express power and withdrawal from the outside world for seclusion and peace. Simultaneously, the gardens and villas both recalled traditions of antiquity and set the stage for fiiture gardens throughout the world.
The Roman elite followed a very old tradition. The patricians and aristocrats of ancient times—including the emperors Nero, Tiberius, and Domitian—built villas throughout Lazio. The enormous complex of Emperor Hadrian near the town of Tivoli, which was to serve as a model for many viUas to come—and is the oldest project in this collection—^was built as a place for refined cultural activities and also as a sanctuary for imperial functions and rituals. Another important source of inspiration was the god Saturn, who was seen as the first to marry the culture of the city with the cultivation of the fields, and his related pantheon of mythic figures.
The influence of both the traditions of antiquity and the Olympian gods lives on in the eleven other gardens and villas presented here. Villa d'Este, with its legendary waterworks, including the Fountains of Rome and Tivoli and the Path of the Hundred Fountains, was conceived in both the spirit of ancient culture and the spirit of the theater. The spectacular Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola served as the seat of the powerful family's properties in Lazio. Vicino Orsini's unprecedented Villa of the Monsters confi-onts the classical world with its pagan and mythic mysteries. And the most recent site shown—the garden of Italian architect and scholar Paolo Portoghesi—demonstrates that the Italian villa and garden tradition continues strong and unabated today. Vissza