Villa Farnese

History

In 1504, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, acquired the estate at Caprarola. He had designs made for a fortified castle or rocca by the architects Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Baldassare Peruzzi. Surviving plan drawings by Peruzzi show a pentagonal arrangement with each face of the pentagon canted inwards towards its center, to permit raking fire upon a would-be scaling force, both from the center and from the projecting bastions that advance from each corner angle of the fortress. Peruzzi's plan also shows a central pentagonal courtyard and it is likely that the later development of the circular central court was also determined by the necessities of the pentagonal plan. The pentagonal fortress foundations, constructed probably between 1515 and 1530, became the base upon which the present villa sits; so the overall form of the villa was predetermined by the rocca foundations.

Subsequently, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, a grandson of Pope Paul III, and a man who was known for promoting his family's interests, planned to turn this partly constructed fortified edifice into a villa or country house. In 1556, he commissioned Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola as his architect, building work commenced in 1559 and Vignola continued to work on the villa at Caprarola until his death in 1573. Farnese was a courteous man of letters; however, the Farnese family as a whole became unpopular with the following pope, Julius III, and, accordingly, Alessandro Farnese decided it would be politic to retire from the Vatican for a period. He therefore selected Caprarola on the family holding of Ronciglione, being both near and yet far enough from Rome as the ideal place to build a country house.

Design

The villa is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture. Ornament is used sparingly to achieve proportion and harmony. Thus while the villa dominates the surroundings, its severe design also complements the site. This particular style, known today as Mannerism, was a reaction to the High Renaissance designs of twenty years earlier.

Vignola, the architect chosen for this difficult and inhospitable site, had recently proved his mettle in designing Villa Giulia on the outskirts of Rome for the preceding pope, Julius III. Vignola in his youth had been heavily influenced by Michelangelo. For the villa at Caprarola, his plans as built were for a pentagon constructed around a circular colonnaded courtyard. In the galleried court, paired Ionic columns flank niches containing busts of the Roman Emperors, above a rusticated arcade, a reworking of Bramante's scheme for the "House of Raphael", in the Borgo rione, Rome. A further Bramantesque detail is the entablature that breaks forward over the columns, linking them above, while they stand on separate bases. The interior loggia formed by the arcade is frescoed with Raphaelesque grotesques, in the manner of the Vatican Logge. The gallery and upper floors were reached by five spiral staircases around the courtyard: the most important of these is the Scala Regia ("Royal Stairs") rising through the principal floors. …

Today

Alessandro Farnese died in 1589, bequeathing his estates to his relatives, the Farnese Dukes of Parma. His renowned art collection was eventually transferred to Charles III of Spain and brought to Naples. In the 19th century, the villa briefly served as the residence of the heir to the throne of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy.

Elements of the villa's Renaissance gardens have influenced many estate gardens of the 19th and 20th century by landscape designers, such as Beatrix Farrand, A.E. Hanson, and Florence Yoch. 1920s gardens with a catena d'acqua include the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills and 'Las Tejas' in Montecito, California, with the latter also having a casino in direct homage to the original at Villa Farnese.

The villa Farnese in Caprarola provided the model for the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Today the casino and its gardens are one of the homes of the President of the Italian Republic. The empty main villa, owned by the State, is open to the public.