DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19775#0015
VILLA ALBANI,
ROME.
" A when the Princess arrived at the palace
/\ she found all the doors wide open, and
I \ she passed through suites of magnificent
rooms, looking out on gardens gay with
flowers, hut there was not a sign of any living
being." So ran the fairy tale of one's childhood,
and the words come back as in the hot midday
siesta one passes under the tall portico that divides
the busy street just outside the Porta Salaria from
the grounds of Villa Albani. The garden is aglow
with flowers ; " the halls are void, the doors are
wide." We seem to have stepped into one of the
enchanted palaces of fairyland, a place where the
Princess might meet the Prince, where all is so
unlike the commonplace scenes of the workaday
world.
Villa Albani differs from other Italian resi-
dences in this—that it was built entirely with a
view to the treasures it was to contain, and that
even to-day, curtailed as those treasures are, it is
impossible to think of it apart from them. The
shining marble rooms, the long terraces, are
peopled by a world of marble men anil women,
and they have, and need, no other inhabitants.
To no one in the eighteenth century does
art owe more than to Cardinal Alexander Albani,
whom his contemporaries called the Great Cardinal.
His wondrous collection has rendered inestimable
service to art and archaeology. Since the time
of Winckelmann, the distinguished German pro-
fessor, under whose care the villa grew, there
has been no student of the antique in Italy who
has not found here a mine of riches on which to
draw for explanation and illustration. No great
writer has been able to tell the history of sculpture
without at every moment quoting from Villa
Albani. The successors of the Cardinal enriched
the collection with a long list of precious paintings
and drawings, and before the French bore away
many of its possessions there were few places in
which were gathered together so many examples
of incontestable value and known history.
The Cardinal from his youth showed a wish
to revive the love of art in Rome, and to turn
back the thoughts of men to the beauties of a
classic past. He treated professional buyers and
excavators with the greatest esteem, and paid for
everything really beautiful that was brought to
his notice with regal munificence. In 1757 he
met with Winckelmann, and was soon attracted
by his critical faculty and artistic knowledge ; the
following year he offered him a salary and lodgings
in his palace in Rome. He gave him fine rooms
with beautiful views. His only duties were to
be a companion to the Cardinal, and to look after
his library. He passed his time going with the
Cardinal to examine ruins and to consider the
positions of statues, and became so intimate with
him that he often went to chat at his bedside.
He threw himself enthusiastically into his patron's
favourite pursuit, and it seemed as if he built and
bought for himself.
The villa is believed to have been built from
the Cardinal's own designs carried out by Carlo
Marchionni. It consists of a lofty two-storied
palace, with an open loggia on the ground floor,
arcades sweeping away on either hand, at the
back of which are small apartments and alcoves,
and on the other side of the garden a sort of
casino with another curving loggia. " Here is
a villa of exquisite design, planned by a profound
antiquary. Here Cardinal Albani, having spent
his life in collecting ancient sculpture, formed such
porticoes and such saloons to receive it as an
ancient Roman might have done, porticoes where
the statues stood free upon the pavements, saloons
which were not stocked but embellished, and
seemed full without a crowd."
Winckelmann, in his letters, gives us con-
tinual accounts of the rise and progress of this
splendid collection, and speaks affectionately of the
goodness and loyalty of heart of its owner.
" What manner of man is he ? do you ask," he
writes to a friend. " He is a man who to great
talents joins the most amiable of characters.
He is sixty-three, but does not look forty, and he
builds as if he were sure ot living for another
twenty-five years. His villa surpasses everything
of modern times, except St. Peter's itself. He
has erected the background he needed, and has
been himself the sole architect." " This cardinal
is the greatest antiquary in the world. He brings
to light what has been buried in darkness, and
pays for it with a generosity worthy of a
king." In February, 1758, he writes: "The
palace is adorned with such a quantity of columns
of porphyry, granite, and oriental alabaster that
before they were put in their appointed places
they seemed like a forest of marble." There are,
in fact, one hundred and forty-four. The noble
portico is supported on thirty-six of oriental
granite and forty small ones, beautifully polished.
(
1
ROME.
" A when the Princess arrived at the palace
/\ she found all the doors wide open, and
I \ she passed through suites of magnificent
rooms, looking out on gardens gay with
flowers, hut there was not a sign of any living
being." So ran the fairy tale of one's childhood,
and the words come back as in the hot midday
siesta one passes under the tall portico that divides
the busy street just outside the Porta Salaria from
the grounds of Villa Albani. The garden is aglow
with flowers ; " the halls are void, the doors are
wide." We seem to have stepped into one of the
enchanted palaces of fairyland, a place where the
Princess might meet the Prince, where all is so
unlike the commonplace scenes of the workaday
world.
Villa Albani differs from other Italian resi-
dences in this—that it was built entirely with a
view to the treasures it was to contain, and that
even to-day, curtailed as those treasures are, it is
impossible to think of it apart from them. The
shining marble rooms, the long terraces, are
peopled by a world of marble men anil women,
and they have, and need, no other inhabitants.
To no one in the eighteenth century does
art owe more than to Cardinal Alexander Albani,
whom his contemporaries called the Great Cardinal.
His wondrous collection has rendered inestimable
service to art and archaeology. Since the time
of Winckelmann, the distinguished German pro-
fessor, under whose care the villa grew, there
has been no student of the antique in Italy who
has not found here a mine of riches on which to
draw for explanation and illustration. No great
writer has been able to tell the history of sculpture
without at every moment quoting from Villa
Albani. The successors of the Cardinal enriched
the collection with a long list of precious paintings
and drawings, and before the French bore away
many of its possessions there were few places in
which were gathered together so many examples
of incontestable value and known history.
The Cardinal from his youth showed a wish
to revive the love of art in Rome, and to turn
back the thoughts of men to the beauties of a
classic past. He treated professional buyers and
excavators with the greatest esteem, and paid for
everything really beautiful that was brought to
his notice with regal munificence. In 1757 he
met with Winckelmann, and was soon attracted
by his critical faculty and artistic knowledge ; the
following year he offered him a salary and lodgings
in his palace in Rome. He gave him fine rooms
with beautiful views. His only duties were to
be a companion to the Cardinal, and to look after
his library. He passed his time going with the
Cardinal to examine ruins and to consider the
positions of statues, and became so intimate with
him that he often went to chat at his bedside.
He threw himself enthusiastically into his patron's
favourite pursuit, and it seemed as if he built and
bought for himself.
The villa is believed to have been built from
the Cardinal's own designs carried out by Carlo
Marchionni. It consists of a lofty two-storied
palace, with an open loggia on the ground floor,
arcades sweeping away on either hand, at the
back of which are small apartments and alcoves,
and on the other side of the garden a sort of
casino with another curving loggia. " Here is
a villa of exquisite design, planned by a profound
antiquary. Here Cardinal Albani, having spent
his life in collecting ancient sculpture, formed such
porticoes and such saloons to receive it as an
ancient Roman might have done, porticoes where
the statues stood free upon the pavements, saloons
which were not stocked but embellished, and
seemed full without a crowd."
Winckelmann, in his letters, gives us con-
tinual accounts of the rise and progress of this
splendid collection, and speaks affectionately of the
goodness and loyalty of heart of its owner.
" What manner of man is he ? do you ask," he
writes to a friend. " He is a man who to great
talents joins the most amiable of characters.
He is sixty-three, but does not look forty, and he
builds as if he were sure ot living for another
twenty-five years. His villa surpasses everything
of modern times, except St. Peter's itself. He
has erected the background he needed, and has
been himself the sole architect." " This cardinal
is the greatest antiquary in the world. He brings
to light what has been buried in darkness, and
pays for it with a generosity worthy of a
king." In February, 1758, he writes: "The
palace is adorned with such a quantity of columns
of porphyry, granite, and oriental alabaster that
before they were put in their appointed places
they seemed like a forest of marble." There are,
in fact, one hundred and forty-four. The noble
portico is supported on thirty-six of oriental
granite and forty small ones, beautifully polished.
(
1