DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0336
The Italian Renaissance and Baroque
307
garden had been an important consideration, and in a country that was so rich in the
beauties of landscape scenery, it was easy enough to find a view. But Rome offered more
than this with its abundance of ruins and churches, and it did not take long to see how
a villa would be enriched by a view of such architecture.
A church is actually a component part of the Villa Mattei (Fig. 236), traces of which,
though much blurred, we can still perceive on the hill of Ccelius. This little church,
FIG. 236. VILLA MATTEI, ROME, IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—GENERAL PLAN
S. Maria m Domenica—also called della Navicella from a small ship that Leo X. had
once put up there, an imitation of an antique find—has the villa garden on three sides
of it. Beside its facade is the entrance gate, and this ancient basilica, with its pretty front
hall (ascribed to Raphael), represents a casino, or a lodge for the palace which stands
in the middle of the garden. Also on the east is the picturesque round building of S.
Stefano, also dating from early Christian times and built on ancient foundations. As a
fact, it is on such foundations that the whole garden is built; and the old walls, plainly
recognisable by their opus reticulatum, are made use of as terrace walls, and part of an
old conduit in one corner has at some time been entirely absorbed into the garden.
Towards the south the eye glides over the Baths of Caracalla to the Campagna backed
by hills.
This fine place was selected as a villa site by Cyriaco Mattei, a scion of an old Roman
307
garden had been an important consideration, and in a country that was so rich in the
beauties of landscape scenery, it was easy enough to find a view. But Rome offered more
than this with its abundance of ruins and churches, and it did not take long to see how
a villa would be enriched by a view of such architecture.
A church is actually a component part of the Villa Mattei (Fig. 236), traces of which,
though much blurred, we can still perceive on the hill of Ccelius. This little church,
FIG. 236. VILLA MATTEI, ROME, IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—GENERAL PLAN
S. Maria m Domenica—also called della Navicella from a small ship that Leo X. had
once put up there, an imitation of an antique find—has the villa garden on three sides
of it. Beside its facade is the entrance gate, and this ancient basilica, with its pretty front
hall (ascribed to Raphael), represents a casino, or a lodge for the palace which stands
in the middle of the garden. Also on the east is the picturesque round building of S.
Stefano, also dating from early Christian times and built on ancient foundations. As a
fact, it is on such foundations that the whole garden is built; and the old walls, plainly
recognisable by their opus reticulatum, are made use of as terrace walls, and part of an
old conduit in one corner has at some time been entirely absorbed into the garden.
Towards the south the eye glides over the Baths of Caracalla to the Campagna backed
by hills.
This fine place was selected as a villa site by Cyriaco Mattei, a scion of an old Roman