DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0182
RAPHAEL
§ Villa Madama: Conviviality, Building and Landscape
Even more unfavourable were the stars that shed their influence on the fate of
the Villa that was erected after Raphael’s plans on the slopes of the Monte Mario,
above the bend of the Tiber at the Ponte Molle (Plate 180). Cardinal Giuliano de’
Medici, the all-powerful Cardinal Secretary of State to Leo X, was here the
Patron, the later Clement VII. The project must surely have been, from its
inception, on so large a scale that a pontificate was scarcely adequate for its
realisation; it seems to have been condemned to remain a ruin before it became a
reality. Its destruction began even before it was finished, at the time of the Sacco
di Roma in 1527; Clement, shut up in the Castle of St Angelo, could see from
afar the catastrophe that befell his favourite spot. His old enemy, Cardinal
Colonna, believed the moment of revenge had come, and had the Villa blown
up. It must nevertheless have been re-erected when it came into the possession
of “Madama”, Margaret of Austria, as her residence. It was from her that the
Villa got its name. To obtain an idea of what was demanded by the patron
for whom it was built or by Roman society, or of what formed part of such a
many-limbed creation, made to be occupied on days of Southern relaxation,
will hardly be possible any longer, with the help of art histories, unless one is
alive to the freedom with which Raphael peopled his Parnassus with men and
women walking, reclining and gathering in circles, on the ups and downs of
the hill. This may give us a condensed picture of that life in a villegiatura of
those times, or in the giardini letterarii; such diversions made it worth while to
create an ensemble of separate, individual scenes and precincts. Precisely this site,
on the slopes of the Monte Mario, the landscape of which even to-day has not been
entirely destroyed, alongside the Tiber, seems to have had attractions for the
building patron and the painter architect.
The theorist Serlio derived his Regole Generali1 for the unity of landscape and
architecture from the example given by this builder-painter.
§ The Loggia as Expression of Villeggiatura
The Casino, without losing any of the imposing splendour of the palazzo
form, conforms in its contours with the outline of the hill; formerly, with the
dark shadows of its three great openings, it must have fitted into the landscape
with less heavy effect and more picturesquely. The part to be played is not so
suited to the living-rooms, concerned as they are with the individual, as to the
saloon; this belonged to the company that passed gaily into it from the garden.
Anyone in the habit of strolling out-of-doors in the wide spaces of the garden
could take with him into the interior something of the pleasant sense of being
in the open-air, glad to feel himself, here also, in out-door surroundings. Thus
the facade opened, with three arches rising almost to the cornice, into a saloon;
1 Venice, 1537, p. Villa; compare Golzio, Raffaello, p. 285.
164
§ Villa Madama: Conviviality, Building and Landscape
Even more unfavourable were the stars that shed their influence on the fate of
the Villa that was erected after Raphael’s plans on the slopes of the Monte Mario,
above the bend of the Tiber at the Ponte Molle (Plate 180). Cardinal Giuliano de’
Medici, the all-powerful Cardinal Secretary of State to Leo X, was here the
Patron, the later Clement VII. The project must surely have been, from its
inception, on so large a scale that a pontificate was scarcely adequate for its
realisation; it seems to have been condemned to remain a ruin before it became a
reality. Its destruction began even before it was finished, at the time of the Sacco
di Roma in 1527; Clement, shut up in the Castle of St Angelo, could see from
afar the catastrophe that befell his favourite spot. His old enemy, Cardinal
Colonna, believed the moment of revenge had come, and had the Villa blown
up. It must nevertheless have been re-erected when it came into the possession
of “Madama”, Margaret of Austria, as her residence. It was from her that the
Villa got its name. To obtain an idea of what was demanded by the patron
for whom it was built or by Roman society, or of what formed part of such a
many-limbed creation, made to be occupied on days of Southern relaxation,
will hardly be possible any longer, with the help of art histories, unless one is
alive to the freedom with which Raphael peopled his Parnassus with men and
women walking, reclining and gathering in circles, on the ups and downs of
the hill. This may give us a condensed picture of that life in a villegiatura of
those times, or in the giardini letterarii; such diversions made it worth while to
create an ensemble of separate, individual scenes and precincts. Precisely this site,
on the slopes of the Monte Mario, the landscape of which even to-day has not been
entirely destroyed, alongside the Tiber, seems to have had attractions for the
building patron and the painter architect.
The theorist Serlio derived his Regole Generali1 for the unity of landscape and
architecture from the example given by this builder-painter.
§ The Loggia as Expression of Villeggiatura
The Casino, without losing any of the imposing splendour of the palazzo
form, conforms in its contours with the outline of the hill; formerly, with the
dark shadows of its three great openings, it must have fitted into the landscape
with less heavy effect and more picturesquely. The part to be played is not so
suited to the living-rooms, concerned as they are with the individual, as to the
saloon; this belonged to the company that passed gaily into it from the garden.
Anyone in the habit of strolling out-of-doors in the wide spaces of the garden
could take with him into the interior something of the pleasant sense of being
in the open-air, glad to feel himself, here also, in out-door surroundings. Thus
the facade opened, with three arches rising almost to the cornice, into a saloon;
1 Venice, 1537, p. Villa; compare Golzio, Raffaello, p. 285.
164